Unexpected Chemical
by Billy's Song
Summary: What will unfold as a normal teenage girl stumbles into a crossover dimension that we know and love as the fictional anime called Bleach? This is a Self Insert that is a fresh combination of drama, humor, action, and romance thats stuffed into a detergent
1. Error Message: Introducing Madness

**Unexpected Chemical; **

**My Self Insertion into Bleach**

**By: billyssong**

Story Theme/Central Song: "Give it 2 Me"-Madonna

Story Type: Self Insertion

A/N: Sorry, I'm currently having one of those periods where I crave to experience the world of Bleach for myself. If this story takes on a few lingering Mary Sue qualities, then excuse me. The following is my interpretation of what would 'possibly' happen if I were to be sucked into the Bleach world randomly. Also know that this is being made for fun as well.

_**Update: (6/20/2010) : It's been over two years since I've written this ongoing fanfiction and I'm terribly sorry to pro lounge the amount of time**_  
_**that many of you had to wait for this to update. I've recently created a chapter that focuses on a solid plot direction for this story**_  
_**opposed to creating multiple 'filler' chapters. Any new readers can read the first 11 chapters out of curiosity, but the *true story* begins**_  
_**in Chapter 12. I've actually outlined everything and I will no longer waste anyone's time. **_

_**Thank you for reading :)**_

_**~billy**_

**Chapter 1: Introducing Madness; "Who Am I?"**

It was finally summer.

Glorious freedom, season of endless sunshine, backlashes in Californian weather, and the only time of year where I could actually get away from working like a horse. Or rather, working like a horse in terms of enduring hours of skimming through chapters, handing in late essays, and finding new methods of copying homework the day it was due. Yes, summer was finally here and I was more than happy to welcome it into my usual agenda. This was the season where I finally deemed myself 'soon to be un jail bait.' What was this? Oh, after years of surviving a few handfuls of boyfriends and experiences with older boys-As of July 10th, I'd hit the lucky '17' mark and claim my freedom from the old age restriction. But turning seventeen wasn't the only thing that I was looking forward to.

/Keywords:

BLEACH,

BLEACH, and more, "BLEACH."/

What's Bleach? Well, unless you've been avoiding popular anime for the past couple of years, you'd know that BLEACH isn't only a laundary detergent. Bleach is basically an anime that focuses on a bunch of human seeming characters possessing spiritual, energetic, and powerful qualities that either help them protect or destroy the dimentions in which they reside. This anime mostly centers around a character named "Ichigo"...yadda, yadda. If you're already familiar with this anime, then spiraling off into a summary is just going to bore you silly.

Anyway, I was excited to dedicate my spare time to spending hours watching it on either YouTube, Google Video, or other branch off sites that hold new dubbed and subbed versions of this anime. Who knew why I was so addicted? Truthfully, I couldn't even put it into words myself. For awhile, a few of my friends had been talking about how 'amazing' it was, and I was fortunate enough to sit down and watch it recently. It was an odd thing being addicted to an anime. If you've gotten to the point where you're fighting with your parents to spend an extra half hour to watch another episode of ANY anime instead of going to bed-You know that you've got it pretty bad. It was here that I mingled with the anime-crazed masses.

Next to loving the anime itself, I, (like many, many teens before me) have even taken my addiction to as far as 'lusting' after a fictional character..or a few of them, rather. I shouldn't go into detail about who I fancy among the various Shinigami. If you're like me and are one of those girls who tends to 'jump ship' and ramble for an eternity about how much you'd want to tap a character-This is the reason why I'll avoid it. However, I'll allow myself to say that I'd definitely head after the following adjectives for them; "Smirking Blonde, Tatoo, Jaw Bite, 69, and God of War."

Bah, I'm rambling again. Remember how I mentioned that I'd do this a few seconds ago? Besides, it's time for me to start browsing Google and Wiki for facts about my favourite characters that I 'mysteriously' haven't discovered yet. I should look up Zodiac signs and Manga appearances today.

Over the next few seconds, I felt my irises blaring in pain through the lens' of my glasses. I'd been sitting on my ass staring at pure white background screens for the past few hours. This meant one of a few things. One-I needed to get a life soon, or else the internet would gobble me up. Or two-I needed to walk around for a bit and stare at a few colorful things in order to get my eyes to focus on something that wasn't pixilated. Out of these options, I of course chose the first option. "How American of Me," right? Lyric attributed to a song by 30 Seconds to Mars.

Unfortunately, my would-be internet browsing was interrupted.

"KAM, YOU PROMISED THAT YOU'D PLAY ON X-BOX LIVE WITH ME," growled my impatient, yet lovable cousin from a room somewhere above. Oh right, I forgot to mention that I lived with a cousin that demanded constant waves of attention on a regular basis. Today was the day that I allegedly..'promised'..that I'd play a few minutes of Call of Duty 4 with him. It was in payment for him letting me watch an episode of Bleach on his computer after my mother kicked me off mine for the day.

I sighed. I knew that if I wanted to forge 'peaceful relations' with the little titan, I had to comply with him. Scowling, I eventually got up after an extra minute of swooning over the mentioned 'Tatoo' male via fangirl shrine.

Anyway, I took the long, reluctant trip up the stairs to my cousin's room. I plopped down on the floor and stared up at the new, "Create Player Name," that he had prepared for me on the tv in front of me. My cousin only smirked at me as he shoved his extra controller into my hands. I grasped the silly, plastic thing and was a few moments away from entering the name, "Strawberry," just for the sheer fun of having a laugh at Ichigo.

But...something odd had suddenly popped onto the screen when I tried hitting 'submit'. A very large, red and white message had attacked the screen with one of those "Error: 109"-whatever esque' messages. I stuck my tongue out at it. I HATED when these things found you when you were seconds away from doing something important.

Yet, surprisingly-my cousin didn't have the same expression on his face. Instead, his eyes widened in a silent shock.

"CRAP?," my cousin cursed as he started to smash a series of buttons with his fingers into his controller. He looked as though he was trying to get rid of something, but to ill effect.

Even though I felt sorry for him, I knew that his mother would only buy him a new X Box within a matter of days, so I didn't panic. I poked him with a questioning finger.

"What's got you in a hissy?" I asked, watching him desperately try over and over to beat the message with his button smash tecnique.

"You didn't get about get about 1,000 emails or see the news WARNING about this yesterday?"

I frowned. I hadn't, apparently.

"Well, you're seriously PATHETIC if you didn-" I stopped him, sending him my own of warning him to be wary of how he spoke to his 'elder' cousin.

"You don't have to be an ass. Just tell me what happened, Eric!"

He sighed, and threw one of his bed's pillows into my face. I winced.

"Sorry, it's just that...there's some new virus thing that's spreading into every communicative outlet right now. The news and the thousand' emails, texts, you name it, were trying to warn everyone to limit their time today to only surf the web, watch tv, drive around, use their phones, and even play their games for a certain amount of time today," he explained with lingering shock on his face.

I arched a brow.

"But isn't that hypocritical? They're trying to warn everyone to AVOID doing that when they 'have to' in order to gain access to it. If you ask me, that's just ridicul-". Surprisingly, Eric cut me off. I'd have to get him for doing that.

He looked even more frightened than before.

"KAM-Tell me that you turned off your computer before you came up here?"

I think I understood what he was getting at-but the logic still didn't make much sense to me.

"You know me, Eric. I always leave it on if I plan to get back on it later."

Suddenly, the kid ended up flying off of his bed and jumping off of the nearby railing to get downstairs. I hurried after him. If Eric saw any of my yaoi shrines open-I didn't even want to 'think' about what he'd tell my mom once she came home.

When re entering my previous internet sanctum, I found Eric to be staring with his jaw hanging open. Confused, I rounded the corner to try to see what he was staring at.

A similar, yet bolder Error message had graced my computer screen. The only difference was that a tide of tiny, digital creatures had started to infest it. The eerie looking things roamed around my screen, feeding on precious Photoshop files, pictures, story documents...anything within eye sight on my desktop.

I panicked like HELL.

I found myself grabbing my keyboard and starting to smash a combination of buttons into the computer similar to what Eric had been doing upstairs. This wasn't happening to me. I was dreaming..no I was just IMAGINING this after watching some crap horror movie.

In the meantime, Eric just stared at me with a saddened expression his face. He slapped his hand to his forehead, before tilting his head down to look back at me.

"You're basically screwed."

"Oh THAT'S REALLY HELPING me right now, Eric," I snapped while trying to input a few amateur hack maneuvers into my keyboard.

"..The news said something about the virus manipulating whatever browsers or sites you had open before it infected it," Eric drifted off, obviously trying to plant a few more explanations into the situation.

It wasn't working. .

However, I struggled to pay a some attention to what he was saying.

"So, 'manipulate' in terms of what exactly?"

He sighed again.

"They said that the virus would manage to hack into your system if you didn't heed the warning they sent out to you."

"But, HOW-"

The boy cut me off again. Damn him!

"The virus gets in from whatever you were looking at on your computer. Once it gets in, it virtually takes on the form of what category that site applied to. So, if you were looking at porn or somethin'-"

I wanted to laugh, but glared at the kid instead. Baka.

"If you WERE, then the virus would read under the name and type as a 'Pleasure File/Bug.' I know it's weird and all, but apparently some group of sick internet addicts planted it to take on the image of the most popular sites out there right now."

Once he finished, another internet message popped up onto my screen. I stared at it, trying to interpret its true intention, but to no avail. Not to mention, that the message was addressed to me from a close friend that I'd made online a few years back.

The message was labeled, "Happy Early Birthday, Kammy!"-with a few squiggles of internet happy faces fit onto either side of the title. I couldn't help but open the thing. Regardless of whatever virus lay within it-if this was the LAST thing I'd see before my system was erased, then so be it, right?

I opened it a few seconds later. The contents consisted of an identical, but larger rainbow title blaring at the top, and a string of Bleach videos, movies, and parodies lined along the bottom.

Her little message to me read as,

_"Hey Kammy, I know that I can't be there to celebrate your love of Bleach and your birthday with you, but I thought that I'd give you a few things I'd bought online for you. I know that it's not much, but know that you can't find 'these' videos ANYWHERE else, okay? You're awesome, and I hope that your birthday fits that title to the EXTREME, woman _

_Naomi"_

And of course knowing that I was also a forum goer, she'd left a handful of colorful Urahara and Renji avatars beneath her name with another smiley face.

"What in the HELL is that?" Eric interrupted my joy of the moment with asking something with the answer directly in front of him. .

"It's just an early birthday gift from a good friend. WHAT?" I snapped again, wanting to pummel him into the ground with my keyboard at the moment.

"No, BAKA-yea, I know what BAKA means-I mean, what's that thing crawling along side the message?"

Confused, like much of today, I tried to drag my mouse across the screen a bit to try to see what he was looking at. This was a stupid move.

Without warning, my mindless arrow dragging had pin pointed where the 'virus' had been sitting the entire time.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

"B/L/E/A/C/H File: Selected."

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

These were the last words and images I saw in front of my face before I felt a sudden mini electric current course through my hand from trying to drag the file into the Recycle bin with my mouse.

To be continued


	2. Status: Falling into the Unordinary

**Unexpected Chemical;**

**My Self Insertion into Bleach**

_Chapter 2: Falling Into the Unordinary _

:billyssong:

_"Hey, what in the hell is that over there?"_

_"--Your yelling is just going to get it angry.."_

_"Well...can someone tell me what it is?"_

_"Who knows? Maybe if it gets its head out the dirt--we'll find out."_

Tiny pixels of color zoomed in and out of my vision as my eyes slowly began to open. The pixels were similar to fireflies in a night sky. The only differences being that these types of lights floated in and out of twisted and broken patterns--As if they were trying to shape an image over time. I blinked. Within a few moments, the previous hard working fireflies had finally managed to create something--or a series of them.

In front of my eyes rested a deep, green and sharply cut surface of shapes. They all seemed as if they fit into sections and swayed in the same fashion. Back and forth. Forewards and then back again, like elegant notches of grass moving gently with the wind.

Wait a second. That's exactly what it was--grass. I blinked again, only to discover that my head was planted face first into the Earth below--or a lawn, or _something. _Eventually, I used both of my arms to help me flip my body over. Instead of my muscles cracking from strain, I felt a small rift of static pass through my joints. After it passed, I was finally wide awake.

What...just happened to me?

From the state of feeling in my body, I wasn't hurt or damaged in any way. I didn't have the wind knocked out of me, I was able to see straight, (into what looked like a perfectly painted sky), and my head didn't feel as if it was about to burst. In short, next to me being on the ground for a reason or another, I was doing oddly all right.

But, next to this odd feeling of not being harmed, something else was out of place. This area, or whatever it was didn't 'look' normal at all. It looked as if a professional, or very talented artist had tried to draw a background of an empty lot. The color combinations weren't meant to be realistic. Instead of using a series of deeper shades to mimic an actual scene that incorporated shadows and reflections--This entire lot had only vaguely high lighted what it was supposed to look like. Instead of darker shades, the lot took on bright and eccentric hues. To be honest, it was if a fan had successfuly mimicked a scenario out of an anime.

...Wait. An anime?

I had to be surrounded by an art gallery of some sort. The flourescent sunshine, the basic green grass, the roughly sketched brown Earth wasn't an imitation, but a flat out drawing. Lifting both brows in confusion, I looked around.

The only thing in sight was the ground below, its lush carpet of grass, and a frail outline of worn fence and wire poorly binding the area. Beyond the fence waited a faint glimpse of a loud and animated city. I must have looked like a complete mess, so I was thankful that the fence had given me a bit of protection.

But again, why in the hell was everything around me...so anime esque'? At this point, I was contemplating on whether I was in an extreme section of a convention, or in a very twisted dream.

Back to 'me'--or what felt like me anyway. Unsure of what I was, or who I was, I lifted both hands in front of my face.

...Now you've GOT to be joking..

Both of my hands, forearms, chest outline, clothed legs--ANYTHING that was within sight looked very neatly and professionally drawn. Upon further examination, I even fancied a laugh when I noticed that the shadows alongside my finger tips weren't shadows..but rough sketches of cascading lines.

But, what about the rest of me? ..

Scoffing at the fact that I hadn't landed in a hall of mirrors instead, I glanced around again. I needed to find something that gave the impression of a mirror. As if my attention span had suddenly started working again..I noticed a puddle sitting a few feet away.

If this was indeed ..some.. sort of hallucination, then the rest of my body should resemble the art patterns from what I've seen so far.

I swear I almost ended up racing toward the puddle on my bare hands. Breathing like a madwoman from anxiety, I peered over the ground's outline of the water's edge. Before me sat a very accurate, yet anime fashioned version of myself.

..Ha!

She had the same medium brown skin, same strong jaw line. What was more was that I stared in a mixture of excitement and shock to witness how my other generalities turned out. Instead of my usual and murky brown eyes that I had been born with--in this reflection I had dark hazel eyes. I figured that this was done to bring a better light to the better aspects of my face. Next, was my hair. My hair had taken on a cleaner and edgier version of the boyish cut that I had earlier. This variation was on the brink of looking similar to a pixie cut with a fall of light brown and spiky strands. Last but not least, I found it amusing that I was still wearing the loose striped sweat shirt that I had stolen from one of my friends. Hell, the piercings that I had forgotten to take out the night before were still lined alongside my ears.

..I expected to be coated in a skimpier version of what I had on before, but this was better than nothing. And besides...who's to say that it was only the 'raunchy' looking girl that gained more attention? I laughed at the prospect.

Speaking of laughing, that's all that I wanted to do at this point. I was trying to keep myself from falling into a state of panic. Point blank: I was as scared as hell from what I'd discovered. What was I going to do? How could I explain this to anyone?...Why did I EXIST like this?

As if to answer my questions, the furthest side of my right eye caught a sudden 'flash' of something that appeared out of nowhere. I winced as the light intensified before finally directing to a single point. I whipped my head around.

If this WAS an anime, then random flashes of light usually meant an unexpected ally or..enemy had found the character that noticed it. Then again, maybe it was just the sun playing tricks on me?

However, this was no trick at all. Once I whipped my head around, I only saw a new set of miscellaneous objects appear against the furthest corner of the fence. These new objects consisted of an ordinary looking black back pack with an vanilla colored file resting against it. From a distance, I also saw something very large, and awkward looking scribbled across its face.

I crawled over to the objects, figuring that walking would be a waste since they were so close to me. From half a foot away, I dragged the bag over to where I'd decided to sit along with the file.

'I wonder if anything good's in here?' I thought, finding the zipper and pulling it over to reveal the bag's contents. All that was inside were a glasses' case, a pen, a tiny notepad..and that was all. I sighed. I was hoping for a phone or Dorothy's pair of red slippers to get me out of this.

Thinking that I might as well see if anything else was made of phail for helpful artifacts, I opened either side of the lone vanilla file.

-Surprise-

The file had revealed a single sheet of paper with an amateur l33t esque' lay out, and a few lines of what appeared to be some sort of..poem?

972948720428042742048720482

27o472492742047204872048204

697927429470000000

All else fails while the wind is pestered for salvation

Within lies a path diverged of many tales

Tales of suffering, tales of eccentric laughter

This day breathes of a single objection

No one can hold the wind better

-than the fate striped with exile-

9742947294279274294724972924

9272947294274927927429472947

6902840284200000000

All right, Mr. Vanilla File, I'm going to attempt to interpet you. Since the flash of light must have signaled some sign from 'God'..or something, I can only help to decipher what this means.

First of all, the first two lines apply to someone who's trying to achieve something. 'Pestered for salvation,' right? At the same time, since I'm magically here, the 'many tales' can only translate to be a series that someone is about to, or currently experiencing.

...Since I don't see any human or furry and talking creature, I'm guessing that this entire poem applies to 'me'? I don't have any idea what I'm rambling about at this point.

..The first section of the poem looked as if it was some sort of introduction. So, I'd guess that it's safe to assume that the rest should signify a ...future task?

I scratched the side of my head like an ape in deep contemplation..or Ichigo rather. Ha! Finally managing to squeeze a laugh out of my throat, I picked up my useless new bag, stood up, kept the file in one hand, and held up the message directly into the sunlight.

This wouldn't be so bad...right?

I tilted my head to the side when reading over the text again. Everything had subtle metaphorical and debatable definitions up until the final line.

'The fate striped with exile.' What was this supposed to mean?

On a side note, if this message ties into this new anime 'world' that I'm in, then I needed to figure out WHICH anime I had fallen into. Thinking about this scenario again drove me back into my corner of panic.

..What if I couldn't leave?..

I mean, it's all fun and games until I'm going to start to eventually miss my family, friends, and usual days at some point. It's going to eventually crash down on me unless I get some answers...from someone, anyone.

-Calm down, K-- Wait, what in the hell was my name?

I tried to relax, but found myself fidgeting around to try to get my mind off of not being able to remember anything of it besides the letter 'K.'

My eyes began to warm, and eventually started to water. Yet no tears cascaded.

'I can't even remember my name...What was I supposed..to do?' Damnit.

My name was the closest thing that I used to define who I was. The true name that my mother had squabbled with my father about to name their daughter. The one name that people raised their eye brows to when I introduced myself to them. Even though I had usually rocked an affectionate nick name for it--In its originality, my name was a good portion of the essence that I identified myself to.

I tried to relax. I mean, as long as I could remember what my name started with, then I should be fine..or..

In all of my deliberation, I realized that I had been blankly staring into the message that I directed into the sunlight. Directly beneath the message lay a shadow of another on the other side.

I gulped before using both hands to turn it over, dropping my bag at my feet.

Again, more simplistic l33t as a header.

296294729462947294729229

97294724924294629472497

111111100000000

In darkness of a path once tred

-rests a trail anew-

To the name of the soul once given

The world breathes of the name, "Nakata, Kisamu"

Let it walk forward

Let it surround you

To the discovery of the name of thy former

The first gates of familiarity will open

Once and final more

2424224242047

0000000000000000

For the first time in a while here, I felt myself take it easy. This new poem on the back of the original didn't look as intimidating, and was much easier to translate. I also couldn't help but find it a bit ironic that I was supplied with a mysterious answer every time I asked something about my present situation.

My lips cracked into a half smile while I read the line that suggested that I take on a new name. 'Kisamu Nakata?' It sounded interesting, to say the least. I chuckled. At least it wasn't 'Sakura' or another commonly used anime name. Then again, I'd never been to Japan...

Speaking of 'locations', again, where was I, exactly?

I slapped my hand to my forehead. All right, Ms. Nakata, you'll need to identify which anime you're in, as of RIGHT now. Think, think, think. All that I had to do was to walk around the city, or ask someone what city this is, right?

Partially satisfied with my decision, I stood up, shoved the message and the file into the bag, swung the bag over my shoulder, and started to walk forward. After a few seconds, I cautiously climbed out of the wire and fence combination.

/

_"What are you waiting for?_

_Nobody's going to show you how.." -Madonna/Give it 2 Me_

/

My face met a fresh breeze mingled with a smell of chemicals from new construction, and lingering scents of various fried foods wafting through the air. My eyes met a large area filled with cheerful and busy jointed scenarios. Most were of children and young teens playing either hop scotch or fit into tight packs playing on electronic devices alongside a streetcorner. Others of adults running to and froe around chains of markets, strip malls, and short buildings of independent businesses.

Everything around me was in a constant flow of motion. Nothing was stopping, everyone seemed cheerful or slightly irritated, and everything felt as though it was bound by a principle to keep 'progession' flowing.

I sighed, yet with a smile on my face.

This city...this _world_ seemed much better than the one I left..

I shook my head after awhile to try to focus myself back on my current dilemna. Unsure if I was doing something that'd benefit me, I tapped on the shoulder of a petite and tranquil looking man staring at the clouds above.

He looked as though he was completely mystified, and was startled when I touched him.

"Yes..um, Miss?"

"Excuse me, but what city is this?"

I was surprised to see the man widen both eyes at me as if I was a complete foreigner to be comforable standing where I was.

"Oh, you don't know? My dear, we stand in the boistrous belly of Karakurachou."

My eyes suddenly shot to the extent that the man's had only moments before.

...This was--!

/

Reply-Review Corner:

A/N: Thank you so much to CO Raven for reviewing me! I hope that you've enjoyed my good minute's worth of physical description. I hope that I wasn't laying it on too thick to try to make it decent. I just stuck with the 'image' of an anime version of myself that I had in my head. I'm on the verge of supplying an actual hand drawn image of this version through a link once I get my scanner working. And of course, a large thank you for the ending compliment.

An early thank you to everyone else who's reading this currently, or may so in the future.

/


	3. Adaptation: A Hidden Character

**Unexpected Chemical; **

**My Self Insertion into Bleach**

**:billyssong:**

_Chapter 3: A Hidden Character _

/A/N: (I could have gone in any direction with this chapter, so I hope that this new direction

that I've made will be all right with the rest of you, interesting even.)

Disclaimer: I have no legal ties to any actual Bleach characters mentioned/

"Th--..this is Karakura?" I must have resembled something close to a gaping idiot at this point. Subtle signs had been around me this entire time. The virus file, the setting..the final line on the first message I had received. They all had been methods to help knock impatiently on the side of my head that, "HELLO, you've just entered into one of your favourite anime, bucko."

My eye brows had lifted to the point where they'd disappear beneath my new finely cut hair strands. Even though I'd already deducted that I was fully awake and this world WAS indeed my new reality, this was far, far too good to be true. After all of those nights I'd spent browsing through Bleach character profiles, weeding out interesting facts, and the saliva I'd drained oggling at all of the attractive Shinigami--why was I the one to deserve such a treat? I'm sure that there must be thousands, or God forbid, 'millions' of people who hit high enough of ranks of Bleach Addicts to deserve to be here instead of me.

I mean, I just..recently..got introduced to Bleach less than a year ago. My obsession is even more of a newborn.

In all of my mindless staring, the man beside me only shook his head with a knowing smile. "Let me guess; You're not really familiar with this place at all, are ya?"

I gaped at him. Naturally, I couldn't keep my emotions, let alone a marvelous secret quiet to save my life. Damn him! He was an observant one, I'd give him that.

Instead of strolling away and muttering something about, 'typical tourist,' he placed a warm hand on my shoulder, disregarding that he was shorter. He did the classic anime expression by closing his eyes like a sage while responding.

"Would you prefer that I give you a verbal guide through this town, or a visual one?" I was surprised that he'd offer such a thing. Back in the states or just in the world I left, people weren't generally this kind to strangers. But back to his offer. Technically, if I were to accept the verbal offer, I'd have an eighty five percent chance of still getting lost. So visual it is, ne? After all, that's my field of expertise.

"If you don't mind, I'll take the visual?"

For some reason, his smile broadened into a slightly mischievous grin. "Not a problem! And I'm happy to admit that the visual route comes with two advantages."

I cocked my head to the side. I was relieved that this was an advantage rather than the usual 'catch' to a bargain. I couldn't believe that I'd have this much luck.

"Thank you, I appreciate your generosity. But now I'LL admit that I'm curious...what are they?"

The man started to rummage through his pants' pockets before clutching something, but not drawing it into view.

"The first half of your advantage is going to consist of a tour through out this town."

My eye twitched. I should have been 'happy' about this.

"I hope that I'm not rude when I say this but--how long is that going to take?" I asked this because talking to him about directions had suddenly reminded me about that 'last' line from the message previously. I had to seek out this 'fate striped with exile.' Since this was Bleach, then in all of his glory, this could only dwindle down to one person. Hopefully that I was right about this one.

/

...Urahara, Kisuke.

Exiled Captain of the Soul Society's Division of Research and Development.

/

The man chuckled. "Well, unless you have somewhere important to go, then it'll take at least an hour or so. That is of course--if you want me to go into detail about each area."

What could I do? I had a growing fangirl inside of me groaning to, "Forget the old man. GET KISUKE NOW. GO GO GO!" The -Smirking Blonde- had to be the most recent crush that I'd developed over the past few weeks. He was mysterious, logical, a wise ass, AND subtly devious all at the same time. It was like killing a family of awesome-friend-to have birds with one stone. All I had to do was take about 20 minutes to see him, and boom, my fate was sealed. At the same time, that wouldn't be the mature thing to do when someone's offering so willingly to help me. But aha! I can devise of a way to incorporate both into one..some how. The fangirl was devouring my soul like a cookie.

So, Ms. Nakata, here's the game plan--Let this man walk you around town until you reach Urahara's shop. After that, insist that you can find help THERE, and let him go on his merry way. Good? Perfect. Then again, maybe my cunning skills weren't as sharp as I thought they were.

"Umm, if you don't mind sir, could you lead me up to a certain point?" I asked, hoping, praying that he wouldn't object.

"Naturally. But what point would that be? Some areas require that you at least have an understanding of the districts. It'd be easy to get lost if you're not careful."

I felt anxiety pumping into my chest. I had to experience what it was like to be around Urahara, Tessai, Jinta, and Uryuu. Hell, maybe I could snag a job there? I'm sure that I could put Tessai to shame with my own cooking.

"No problem! You see, I'm looking to get a job at a shop around this town's outskirts. I'm not sure what district that's in. So, if you could just help me get there, then that'd help me tremendously." I tried to pull a chibi grin, similar to the one that Rukia gave to her unknowing teenage classmates when she had something to hide.

"Like I said, that won't be a problem at all. What's the shop called?"

"--Heh, I don't know the shop's official title. But a scruffy looking man named 'Urahara' owns it."

The man blinked in confusion. What? I'd given him the shop owner's name. Not to mention that Urahara's shop surely went by his name as well?

"Describe him better."

I perked up. Describing him helped build his image in my mind, or body, rather. God help me, the fangirl's still here.

"Well, I've never met him myself, so I don't know how tall he is."

He sighed. Crap, I needed to steer in better source material. Pronto.

"However, I DO know that he has light blonde hair, wears a forest green coloured outfit equipped with wooden sandals. He also carries around a cane sometimes that makes him look older than he really is. But, from looking at the slender shape of his face, you could tell that he looks around his mid twenties." Did that do it?

The man had started to stare innocently up at the sky again. This must have been a sign that he still didn't have any idea about the blonde. There's got to be something else that I could say.

Wait a second...

"Oh right! Sorry about not mentioning earlier, but I think that he's the only person in this town that wears a green and white striped hat like a twisted fashion statement?"

That did it.

"Ah, why didn't you say that earlier then? That's all I needed to know. I'll leave the rest of your descriptions to your own desires." Within moments, he had started to motion me to walk forward, and I did so. He began.

"All right, here's a little lay out of the land so far. Right now, we're in the belly of Karakurachou, in the center of Mashiba. Here, you'll find the town's general shopping centers." While I looked around a smidge, I took in the fleeting images of customers of all ages running in and out of the contents of buildings like rabbits. Most of the people steadily became blurrs of various color variations around me. Ever changing. Maybe only stopping for a fragment of time to tug at their children to their next location, or mutter to each other about how loudly that parent's child was yelling in public.

I was about to open my mouth, but he cut me off. "--N' since you want to get to this Urahara fella, then you'll want to travel EAST of here. If you rent a bike from that bike shop over there, or take the train, you'll end up directly in his shouten's district in Mitsumiya."

All right, now it was high time that I looked at my options. If I wanted to rent a bike, A) I didn't have any money, well, maybe a few nickels bouncing around in my pocket but nothing more. Then, B) It'd be a longer trip. Whereas with a train, I'd be able to get there much faster, but I still had to pay some kind of fee. Not to mention that this was a much smaller and independent town, so I doubted that there'd be any commercialized cabs anywhere.

He watched a frown form on my lips.

"Well, renting a bike's fairly cheap, so it'd cost you about 500 yen," from the tone of his voice, he could already tell that he predicted to lose me in this department. I tried to keep a straight face, however. Last semester, one of my history teachers had drifted off into telling our class how to convert an American's mind into a basic dollar to yen calculator. Even though I was hardly paying attention, I think I remembered some detail about 'anything a little over or about 500 translated into 5 dollars.' This was some what irrelevant to my current situation, but if anything came down to converting simple prices here in my head, I'd be able to squeeze by.

Then, like much of today, the man had another answer ready for me.

"If you promise to find a way to pay me back, I'll cover your way on the train," he offered, his mouth cracking into a genuine half smile. This had to be one of the kindest men on the face of the Earth, or -this- one at least. Believe me when I say that if I had the tools to navigate through Karakura on my own, I would have. Not to mention that if he still offered to, I probably would have bought him lunch as a quick thank you.

"You have no idea how grateful I am to you right now, Mr--?"

"--Just call me Gen, if you don't mind, Ms--Now I'm afraid that you'll have to return the formality!" His throat bounced when he chuckled.

"Nice to meet you, Gen. My name's..Kisamu?" My voice cracked when sounding the last syllable. I must have seemed like a child, rather than a teenager. Just great.

"Ah--The 'energetic or loud one?' or so they say."

"What are you talking about, Gen?" Now, it was my turn to start getting confused at this point. Was he even still talking to me?

"No, no, Kisamu. Your name! In traditional Japanese, that's what it translates to." He explained, eyeing me as if I should have known what my own name represented. If this kept up, how could I even think to fit into this culture?

I stuttered. "O-oh, sorry about that. You see, my parents never really told me what my name meant." This lie was partially to what I remembered my old name to originate from in reality.

He cocked an eye brow.

"My mother's name was Karin and her and my dad wanted a name that started with the same letter, so that's why they chose 'Kisamu.' " It was a terrible lie, I'll admit that with an ounce of pride. After all, one of my best friends always told me that I was the worst liar she'd ever seen. Not to mention that 'Karin' once rolled off the tongue..sounded familiar for some reason. Where did I know that name from?

"You don't say? Well that's certainly interesting, Kisamu."

"Why?"

"You see, I have..a grand daughter who's classmate's younger sister goes by that name." His smile turned wary before continuing.

"..Do you know Orihime?" Well, that was an easy answer from a distant, sitting in a chair-looking-at the screen scenario. But personally? I wonder how she'd react to me. I always had a slight dislike toward her character. She didn't seem as though she was able to hold her own ground without the aid of another character. At the same time, however, how she interacts with me face to face can be a totally different thing.

I was blunt with him. "No, I don't know her, personally. But, I'd like to one day."

Before he could ask anything else, I cut him off for the first time.

"--From what I've been told, she wasn't close with any of her other relatives besides Sora. So, how--?" Now this was peculiar. Not even in the manga, the bastion of secret truths, did it mention anything about Orihime having a grand father, or holding anyone to that title. Damn.

I sighed. Now I was starting to feel sorry for her.

"I know that it may seem like a hard thing to believe, if that's what you've heard. But, once she decided to split away from my son and his wife, I tried to make better contact with her."

The emotional depth in this conversation was starting to pull gently at my heart strings. I would never have expected to encounter anyone like this, her grand father, anyone of this calibur so early upon my arrival here. This was becoming far more than simply luck.

"--Everytime I wanted to get closer to her, she'd always insist that her and her brother would make it on their own, with a smile. I could tell that she was hurt, I knew she was. But, it just isn't--"

Even though I didn't know anything about this prior my arrival, I could only assume the rest of what he meant. My words were surprising, even to me.

"--It isn't like her to want for people to help her stand on her own..is it?"

--

/Reply-Review Corner:

A/N: Thank you so much again for taking the time to stop by and read my newest chapter, CO Raven. To be honest, once I read my story over once I submitted it--I couldn't help but agree with you a bit about the extraneous objects. They were a semi filler, and used as a 'stuffer' for the vanilla file plot device. I'm sorry if it seemed tedious to read over it wondering why I'd added such an irrelevant thing. I hope to avoid doing that in the future, so thanks for pointing it out.


	4. Transition: Compass

**"Unexpected Chemical; My Self Insertion into Bleach"**

By: billyssong

_Chapter 4: Compass_

There weren't really any words to describe how I felt. Just hours ago I had been sitting comfortably in front of my computer with typical teenage fantasies floating in and out of my head. After ten months of sitting through grueling school hours waiting to be released to do what I wanted--that's exactly how I handled it. I called a couple of friends, enjoyed a lazy bus ride home, and ended that day with punching my fist into the air, happily accepting my freedom. Hardly a week into summer, I found myself the experience of dropping into one of my favourite animated shows.

And..here I am having a conversation with a character that technically shouldn't even exist. There isn't a single parallel connecting any of this. There's just this lonesome fellow Gen, myself, and an enormous and rolling world of Bleach characters waiting patiently for me to come banging on their front doors.

"--That's exactly right. I shouldn't even be surprised that you'd know such a thing," Gen fed me another one of his wary smiles, and tilted his straw hat down in front of his eyes. I hadn't even acknowledged that that hat was there.

"So, is that the reason why you two aren't exactly close?" I hoped that he'd give me a better idea before he forced me to dig around for it myself.

He kept his hand steady on the brim of his hat.

"I guess you could say that. Every time I try to get close to the girl--she just finds another reason to not bother with me at all."

"Maybe you could try writing and sending out letters to he--"

"You know, sometimes I wonder if one day she'll just--Forget it, scratch everything that I've just said."

I was a bit astonished. Out of nowhere, Gen had opened an unexpected field to his emotions, then gated them off with a, "Come Back Later," sign just as quickly. Wow, this was so helpful to me. This guy had come off as a senior prophet to me, let me into his world, then slapped me in the face by saying, 'You know what? I'm going to SCREW with your freaking head, Missy.'

The only thing that I could do was blink and kick out any possibilities of me knowing about him and the princess of literal Spiritual 'Rejection.'

"Sorry, Gen. I didn't mean to pressure you."

"Think nothing of it. Now unless my sense of direction has completely stopped, I think we're standing in the center of a very busy intersection."

The bastard, he was dead on. We had ironically walked our casual to personal conversation directly into the cross fire of people pouring in and out of the town square. Babies were crying

as if they were constantly being attacked, people were shouting, and passerbys' were desperately trying to dart out of the civilian traffic.

My head throbbed from all of the exaggerated sounds. I could have sworn that I heard a familiar voice escalate above most of them as if a bomb had been set off. I couldn't make out WHAT in the hell it was saying, but it sounded like a teenager had just blown a temper fuse. Again, something was twanging inside of me to connect it to some memory.

I only nodded my head and continued to trek off after Gen. Every time I tried to remember the slick little thing, it slithered away into me being stuck with nothing.

"The perk to this place is that once you wonder around for a couple hours, its second nature to you about where the next thing is. But, since you don't have any clue-"

I smiled and considered playfully smacking him in the back of the head.

"--We're taking the northwest exit, so look around a bit to make sure that you've at least absorbed 'something' out of ere'."

After about some fifteen minutes of walking by streams of disgruntled looking adults, and uniform clad teenagers yelling or talking amongst themselves, we hopped onto the nearest train. Once we got on, I did the odd thing of staring at random people when you've got nothing else better to do. Gen had tilted his head back and had obviously started snoozing his way through the ride. I was bored and needed entertainment.

On each end of our box car were huddles of older high school or younger college students fresh out of school. Among them were a few kids in uniforms sprinkled in with nodding and smiling, or sighing face-to-palm styles of faces and expressions. Their physiques were basic. Thinking about ordinary filler characters, they fit the bill. Each of them had tall and slender frames, even transitions of fair to tanned skin, smoothly sketched faces without too much emphasis, and bald, boy cut, or pig tailed hair styles. Nothing much to see here.

Yawning, I kicked back and stretched myself out in my seat. So this was it? No more mother yelling at me to get off of the computer or do my chores. No more infidel of a cousin jumping in and out of my vision to drag me to play X-Box Live with him. No more multi dimensional skin pigments and outlines, natural spectrums of light...or really just 'rainbows' that actually made sense in reality.

"..I wonder how long this is going to last--?" I muttered, bringing my knees up to the rest of my body, and curling up into a ball. I buried my eyes in my arm and began to lull myself to sleep along with the sounds of the roars of laughter of a nearby conversation.

_"Freakin A', Ayumi, who would have thought that you'd SERIOUSLY dig that guy?" _

_"--Oh shut UP, you know that you shouldn't be saying anything after you almost fell on top of him yesterday when you two tripped. Hel-LO, Yamcha, watch who you're talking to!"_

_"Man, Yamcha, she's right you know.."_

_(A loud smack)_

_"OW man, that seriously hur--"_

_(Another smack is heard and the third voice is muffled)_

_"So yea, Ayumi--how about telling me what you think of that guy that orange head FREAK's always talking to?" _

_(More muffled complaining) _

_"I have no idea who in the hell you're talking about."_

_(The muffled voice laughs like a maniac before it disappears with a 'thud')_

_"Ayumi, come on now. You mean to TELL me that you and Yoko weren't checking out that big guy with the raspberry spikes for a HEAD and cult lookin' tat--"_

_(The first voice can be heard groaning and crying for mercy a few seconds later)_

_"Oh, you mean Ichigo's brother?"_

_(Ayumi scoffs and giggling erupts behind her)_

_"What do YOU care if he's much more attractive than you are? I bet you he'd even kick your sorry ass if you tried saying that to his FACE."_

_"--But Ayumi, that guy hasn't been around since that one day Ichigo dragged him into class and was found straddling him in the hall way..."_

_"-I mean, do you think he's..?"_

"Kisamu, KISAMU," I heard my new name being warmly sounded into my ear. Alongside the drifting sounds of teenagers, this voice was oddly pleasant. Thinking nothing of it, I groaned, and rolled over into my cat nap ball. I nuzzled my body deep into my sweat shirt's fabric.

"Baka onna. Silly girl.." The voice mumbled softly to himself. At this moment, I was floating between the waves of a beautiful dream and my own consciousness. Out of my dream realm, I lifted a heavy eye lid. It was met with the searing light of a dimly lit sun hanging somewhere above. The word 'baka' seemed familiar to me.

"..I'm not a baka, you baka oni-san," I responded, raising my neck slightly to hear the voice better. Part of me thought I was just snapping back to a male figure in my dream, the other knew that it was only Gen.

Either way, the person whacked me across the head with a gentle hand.

"All right, Missy. It's time for us to be heading out!" The man cried cheerfully and bounded from his seat to walk toward the box car's exit. I shook my head, stretched again while snatching my bag, and trudged over to where he had stood next to the train. The train had apparently stopped a few minutes ago and the old man had managed to squeeze by the people filing out in front of me. Peculiar little thing, aint he?

Sucking in my stomach, I moved across the kids bundled together from before, and ripped my way through the new bodies struggling to hop on.

"Salvation!" I sighed, deeply breathing in whatever this air was made of around me. It tasted of nothing more than pure wind passing through my nostrils and grazing across the back of my throat. It didn't have the after taste of random toxins and didn't consist of me coughing a few seconds later from super acidic body sprays. I was amazed at how thankful I was for it. This type of environment was laughable, or at least reminiscent of a simple countryside.

"You like that fresh air, do ya?" He chuckled.

"Well, that last stop of yours shouldn't be too far off now.."

Gen relieved his straw hat from in front of his eyes and pushed it back on top of his head. I watched as his tired almond eyes moved across the flat roofed buildings and short, thick roads that grooved quietly beneath our feet. It looked like an independent district, or a neighborhood with houses spread a part from one another. The flat roofed buildings were mostly identical with an ordinary chain of Japanese establishments, each carrying a brightly coloured or banner phrases with Kanji symbols aligning them.

"Gorgeous. So umm..I guess I'm looking for a little shop lodged between two larger buildings?" I cracked a half smile. Truthfully, I'd hardly stuck around to watch the first handful of Bleach episodes to get a good idea of where Urahara's shop was. Post Soul Society invasion--I could only remember seeing a few brief screen shots of it when Jinta and Uryuu were doing chores in front of it. Nothing more.

"This is a smaller area compared to the town center. As long as you can clearly 'see' what you're looking for, then you'll find it."

I squinted my eyes when staring at him. He had pulled down his hat in front of his eyes again. Instead of friendly almonds, I was looking into the heavily shadowed top portion of his face.

"But there have got to be at least a hundred shops scattered all over the place. How am I supposed to figure out which direction to go in?"

He dismissed the question by cutting his hand swiftly through the air.

Gen shook his head.

"You're far too inquisitive. Instead of questioning where you are at this point, you should provide an answer for that by confidently looking for it."

Without waiting for a response, he added--"..You've _been_ here before, Kisamu."

I felt a sudden irritation twinge. Gen had been generous enough to lead me cheerfully, yet blindly into the bowels of a city unknown to me. He came with the proper assumption that I was a foreigner. Now why was he suddenly casting this aside as if I'd know where to go in a district that I'd never heard of before? I wasn't a casual animated character here; I wasn't a student lounging around the districts looking for friends, I wasn't a normal civilian walking through town as if I had done this with familiarity each day.

I was a normal human being who had a terrible sense of direction.

I felt my eyes warm. I was already starting to get flustered. "You can't just tell me that I _know_ where I am when you know I've never been here before. I mean--how can you _expect_ that I can just walk around, 'imagine seeing' my destination in my head..and suddenly be there?" The tone of my voice was shaking with each word and I struggled to keep my emotions steady. I was letting the smallest of things get to me. This was pathetic.

The corner of Gen's mouth twitched into a smirk.

"By now, I know that you can at least move your legs, sugar," he commented thoughtfully. Before I could say anything else, he turned his body and began to walk in the opposite direction. I watched as his petite frame hunched over to move forward, and listened to the sounds of his clogs gently reverberate through my ears.

"Oh come ON, Gen. You can't leave me _now!_" I moaned in complaint.

"You get moving along now, Kisamu. And--please..don't mention our meeting to my grand daughter," he didn't look back at me as he strolled forward. When he was further down the road, he held up a hand behind him to signify a silent wave.

"Got it?"

I stood there dumbfounded. I had a bag in hand full of useless objects, a head full with questions, and a..surprisingly growling stomach. I turned around in a circle to get a threesixty of the area around me. There was only a repetitive format of small establishments with a few throw ins of Mom and Dad' owned businesses every few feet.

I sighed and closed my eyes while walking down the nearest street. 'Think of Urahara's shop, Kisa. It's a random store that looks out of place. And it's a cute little thing that probably has Jinta prowling around it with a broom by now.'

I must have looked like the village idiot. Every few minutes I'd feel the rush of a luke warm metal brush past me, followed by a squeal of, "Watch where you're goin, lady!". The amount of pavement I walked on didn't feel as if it'd end anytime soon. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes.

In front of me rested a medium sized shop with a flurry of banners swaying on the awning below its roof. It had traditional Japanese architecture and didn't look particularly fascinating. But--like much of today..something about it pulled me to it. The shop was lodged between two faded, yet colorful buildings.

Reply-Review Corner:

A/N: Thanks for stopping by again, Raven. I needed that heads up about not worrying so much about the chapter lengths. I had realized that I started a little pattern with that in my chapters. Thanks for suggesting for me to let loose a little!

Plumalchemyst: A few jumbles of gratitude for you to taking the time to read and review each of my chapters in stride. It means a lot to me.

Also, a quick thank you for those of you who have decided to add me to their favorites/Author Alert lists. I officially have my own lap top, so you should be seeing quicker updates from me.


	5. Encounter: Sugar Coated Sunshine

**Unexpected Chemical; My Self Insertion into Bleach**

By: billyssong

_Chapter 5: Sugar Coated Sunshine_

I didn't know whether to fall flat on my behind from laughter, or burst through the shop's glass front doors like a child. A tide of insanity was engulfing me once my eyes set on one of the few words in Japanese that I actually knew how to translate.

'Urahara.'

"For the love of God, MOVE your limbs, woman!" I shrieked like a maniac to my body, since the cluster of fat and bones suddenly chose not to respond. Every time I told my left leg to bend, for example, it would cease to obey me. Same with my arms, even though at the moment I hardly had any use for them. My head throbbed from the combined frustration and was near to boiling over when I watched the mass of a figure walk behind the glass a few feet away. Don't tell me that's—

Again, like the idiot I was becoming, I tightened my grip on my bag and my slipping pride, and ran forward into the shop owner's den. My feet skidded to a halt once my hands pushed through the glass and my skin felt the sensation of light body heat. This was it. There were no more fantasies to be had about my favorite characters. There weren't any more nights to be had staring into the face of my television wondering why I couldn't be a character myself for once.

In front of me..or all around me rather was a large variety of unique objects. The small joint combination of the store was made up of long rows filled to the brim with colorfully wrapped sweets, miniature toys, and other devices that put a smile on my face. The air of the store was clean, crisp, and had a faint smell of roasted sea food wafting down from above. I hated sea food.

Thinking no one would hear me so far from the counter, I let, "…Anyone home?" roll off of my tongue. I'd put myself under a vague impression that I'd entered before the usual hoard of squawking kids; perfect. Unsure of what I was supposed to be doing with myself standing in the open like this—I started fumbling with the small bow on the bottom of my sweatshirt. I bet that it was made down there, with the designer's reasoning that a teenager might play with it out of nerves one day.

I hesitantly walked toward the cash register. With a quivering right hand, I fingered the small bell on the counter.

Silence.

After a few seconds, I heard a muffled dropping of boxes from somewhere above and the swift pace of heavy footsteps approach. 'Who could it be?' My thoughts raced in every direction. Out of every character in Bleach that I could possibly encounter, who'd be my first?

Then again, it could just be another filler; like the filling of a Hostess cupcake.

"Just a moment," the throaty voice called. The corner of my mouth broke into a grin. It was as if I'd stumbled into the North Pole, and this was Santa's favorite elf.

"No problem." I called back. The pacing had stopped and my eyes danced across a thickly built figure rustling in the shadows some few feet away. Eventually, the figure protruded out of the darkness as the soft spoken Tessai. No idea if that was his first name?

He walked in holding a canary yellow box filled with rainbow assortments peeking over the edge. My heart leapt. I loved rainbows.

I inched forward and tried to snag the closest thing to my hand. I almost jumped a mile when Tessai had snatched the box away just as quickly as I aimed for it. I watched as his muscles bulged and flexed while holding the package. He was slightly shorter than I expected. He was only a foot or two taller than I was, compared to my thoughts of finding a giant.

He definitely smelled like his fishy cooking.

"Can I help you, Miss?" he asked politely.

I stammered.

"Well, you see, I umm…can I..I.." My nerves doubled when I 'literally' saw an anime styled sweat drop form on top of his head. This was turning into a horrible first impression.

"If you're looking for a rest room, you can find one uptair—" I cut him off.

"I'm looking for a job.."

Silence. Both Tessai and I stood without saying anything else for a few seconds. I'd pulled on a goofy grin to try to kill off the nerves that were bouncing around in my belly. No effect.

"Stay right there.."

I opened my mouth to speak, but the adult suddenly dropped the box to his feet, and started to climb back up the stairs. He stopped once he'd gotten on top of a few of them, from what I could see.

"—Manager," he sounded, softly knocking on the wood lining the stairwell to carry upstairs. I thought that I felt my heart push into the front of my throat; it got stuck. I couldn't speak, and watched with startled eyes as I heard a new set of feet slowly descend.

'Thunk.. thunk.. clap.'

"Does this mean that lunch is ready already, Tessai?" A second voice croaked in a low and raspy tone. I figured that it would have created a purring sensation through my body, if it hadn't sounded so tired.

'..Wait, you can't tell me THAT's--'

My thoughts were interrupted as the new character descended, before stopping for a brief second to slip on a pair of clogs waiting at the bottom. The disgruntled looking figure stretched and reached his arms to the ceiling, unleashing an enormous growl of a yawn. He stopped again to bring his hand up to what I could make out to be his face. He started to pick his nose.

"This young lady is looking for a job, sir."

The sketchy figure stopped abruptly as if someone had smacked him clear across the face.

"..Oh really now?"

Without warning, the figure stepped forward; allowing the light pouring in from the windows to cascade gently through his mangled white blonde hair. His body was draped in his usual forest green attire, same plunging and hinting V-neck down center. On his face wore a gleeful smile that cracked into a mischievous smirk.

Urahara pulled his hat down in front of his eyes with a steady hand.

"—Right, I'm looking for a job here, sir." I gulped.

"Now, now, Miss. You don't have to repeat after Tessai to get my attention," he replied, lips still etched with the same greeting.

"I hope that it won't be any trouble for you—"

"Trouble? Of course it wouldn't be, but that doesn't mean that I'll just hand the job over to you," He walked behind the cash register and propped himself up on the counter to look down at me. He gave me the classic impression of a vulture.

"..What do I have to do to get it?" Sweat began to trickle down my spine as I felt the temperature of the store increase by a few degrees—simply due to the mingling body heat. Dear Lord..

"Don't beat around the bush, do you?"

Unsurprisingly, my ego began to puff its chest out. In time, he'd learn that he'd only be a fool to encourage me.

"Well, as long as I'm confident, that's how it turns out." It was a rush of a response, but I considered my words carefully. I had to show that I had some personality, right?

" 'As long as I'm confident,' you say?" He scratched his chin.

"Well, to yell ya the truth—We've got too many of those types around here. Don't you agree, Tessai?"

Tessai nodded. My heart got caught in the back of my throat again.

"If you're talking about Ichigo—then I'll tell you that I'm nothing like him at all." This was a ballzy move, even for me. On the contrary, and trekking back to a recent memory, Ichigo just so happened to be the Bleach character that Internet quizzes insisted that I was almost fully compatible with.

"Ah, so you know old Strawberry, do you?"

I could tell that the blonde watched me carefully once he said this. He waited for my eyes to furrow in confusion. I didn't give him the satisfaction.

I nodded happily, but made sure that it only came off as a brush off nod. One of those responses that you give to assure that it really isn't anything at all. On the contrary again; my inner fan girl swooned like a canary on the inside.

"—Yeah, I knew him for a bit before I graduated from our High School last year." Smooth, I complimented myself. If I could keep this up, I'd be able to steer them away from anything pesky. At the same time, it didn't hurt that I was only stretching the truth by a few steps. Remember that in my previous world—I'm almost seventeen.

Urahara and Tessai stared at each other. They had a silent conversation for a few moments, before continuing their interrogation.

"So what type of a guy was Ichigo back then? " This was like a wait-freeze game of chess. Nothing moved until I told it to; every form of question was heavily dependent on each response.

"Well, you know how he is. From what I could remember, he was still a scowler—always complained over the smallest thing when he wanted attention. Even so, one of the interesting things about him was that he'd always have a heart out for people that stuck out, didn't fit the mold. I'm not sure if the perk still applies—but that's how he found most of his friends."

Tessai was the only one amongst us who made a small, disruptive sound. He moved his glasses further up his nose and looked over at his manager.

"If you don't mind me, sir, I have to go check on dinner."

"You go right ahead, Tessai. Just make sure that you don't load it down with too much curry like last time. We don't want to burn the tongues of our possible guests!" He called up to the taller man. He flipped out his fan and started to playfully waft it in front of his face.

Something inside me lurched.

"I apologize, Ichigo's friend. " He bowed his head down slightly in casual respect.

"—Unless that's the only name you identify yourself with?"

I chuckled softly.

"Of course it isn't, sir. Then again, is that and 'manager' the only respectful addresses that you have to fashion yourself with? Or is it just the hat that does all of the talking?"

My eyes widened a bit when I saw the edges of Urahara's thin mouth curve; like a lecherous beast.

"I always let my stripes speak for themselves." I leaned back on the counter and kept my eyes focused on him. My eyes glanced over the little qualities I hadn't picked up on him before; the scruffiness of his beard, the fine arch of his back, the hidden build of his body beneath all of that fabric—the allure of a faint musk to his scent.

I almost lost myself while taking it all in.

"Would you mind telling me what's so interesting?" His smile had reduced into a single curious curl atop his lips. Even though he didn't sound intrigued, his face said otherwise.

"Oh, I thought it'd be interesting if you actually told me how to get a job here," I pushed the question while closing the distance between us by an inch. Nothing more.

He frowned and leaned away from me, folding his arms behind his back.

"You know that you were going somewhere before you said that," he commented wistfully, moving a large shoulder in front of my view, and turning in the direction of the stairs.

He called over to Tessai upstairs and gave him a few culinary requests. I tuned out and tried to peer over the edge of the peculiar little box that the guy had dropped earlier. Before I got within two feet of the thing, Urahara's voice shot into my ear drums.

"..Do you know what we do here?"

'Bastard.'

"From what I can tell—you guys obviously cater to the taste buds of local kids with sweets. It makes for a good business, but I know that they're half of who you _really _cater to behind closed doors."

"**Good answer. But what makes you so sure that we're a double business?" He busied himself with fixing his hat. I plopped onto the counter beside him, but spoke to the air in front of me. I couldn't look at him directly again. Not now**.

"Well, say that you're a kid who comes in here daily. After awhile, you'd start to notice that this place is too big on the inside to just be a candy store."

He contemplated, qualified the answer with a nod of his head, and started to rummage through the desk behind us. In as little as a few seconds, he was holding a very tasty looking treat in front of my face.

"Lollipop?"

'Damnit, he's good.'

I took it from him with a mutter of a, 'thank you,' and set it down in my lap. When I turned to him, I discovered that he'd already peeled off the wrapper.

I think that I experienced my first animated blush. My cheeks flushed with an annoyingly warm sensation when witnessing the exiled captain happily suckle.. on a lemon flavored lollipop.


	6. Hot China

**Unexpected Chemical; **My Self Insertion into Bleach

_Chapter 6: Hot China ________

I honestly couldn't tell you how long I had been standing there. I was in a heated mixture of bewilderment and the pleasure that seizes a five year old when they experience their first sugar rush. It was so ironic to me that I was standing so casually in front of the character that once sent me through a fan girl's standard of hormone ravaged summer nights.

'You've got to get a hold of yourself, girly.' I thought to myself, also vaguely wondering if any drool just as casually slid down the side of my mouth from how absent minded I must've looked.

Urahara cracked a half smile.

"Do you always stare at people like that?" he lifted up his hat and stared down at me with large eyes. Oh, this is snarkily brilliant. I can't even make an impression for five minutes without someone wondering if I'm totally out of my mind.

I tried to gulp, but found that the lack of moisture in my throat made me feel a nice, little choking sensation.

"I, um…" the lack of air in my throat was killing me, "—yea, people always tell me that they feel weird when I do that." I ended up turning to the side and letting off a string of small, strangled coughs. Nerves does this to you, please take note.

He crossed his arms and let out a soft chuckle.

"Well, you staring at someone so intently with those googily looking eyes of yours would obviously make things awkward." It took about four seconds afterwards of me staring into space from the disbelief. Did this man just insult me? Oh ho ho, this wise ass isn't going to get away with this.

But wait, that felt too random to feel natural. Insult or not. So, I chose my next few words carefully after I swallowed the hollowed remains of my tasty, treaty offering.

"So why do they have to be googily now?" I smirked.

"What's up with the extra description there?"

The exiled captain only replaced his usual dodgy, half smile with a cheerful one.

'He scares me when he switches faces like that.'

"With that attitude of yours, I can't ever imagine you working for me. My workers are obligated to do what I ask without question. You responding to me like that just makes me see that you couldn't do that without instigation."

He moved off of the counter, re positioned his hat, and stretched his slender arms above his head before stepping forward a few feet. He looked back, with his head cocked to the side in a way where his facial expressions were partially buried in shadows.

The disturbing thing was that..he still had that crooked smile on his face.

"It's nothing personal, but I hope you'll understand that I just don't hire strangers." I heard his words leave his lips. I watched his lips mouth them without strain. The entire room must have sensed that a major opportunity just walked out the door, because the air was thick with an unpleasant silence. If someone told me that I was standing there like a complete idiot, I wouldn't have cared.

The fact that I had been sucked into a fantastical world where anything was apparently possible just wasn't enough. That permission of 'anything' also meant that rejection was just a friendly neighbor on the other side of the street.

I heard the soft click clack of his sandals cross out of the room. Hell, even the lovely spice of his scent had floated after him instead of staying as a memory of him in front of me.

"Alright, I understand. I guess I'll just go.." I mumbled the last few words and forced my body to get back into motion as a thin film of blurry liquid began to rise over my irises. I tried to look back at him with a heavy smile before my legs took me beyond the rows of colorful candy wrappers, and back into familiar fluorescent sunshine.

But before I pushed against the glass doors entirely, I just stood there, with my palms pressed into the cool force prickling against my skin. I watched the overly bright summer lights cascade down onto the saturated pavements beyond my reach. I watched a few silhouettes of people, possibly teenagers or adults dance beyond that light. A bird soared past the glass, barely grazing across the contact that would have been my fingertips.

'When have I ever been someone to do exactly as I'm told?' A grin blossomed across my face as my body turned back, and my feet carried me besides the cash register. I propped myself onto the little elevated seating, and crossed my arms.

"Hey mister, I've changed my mind. Sorry about the delay, but I'm not going anywhere." I called upstairs, leaning onto the register and tickling the numerous buttons with my fingers out of boredom.

A mixture of rustling echoed from somewhere above. Footsteps began to crack down the stair case before a head poked around the stairwell.

"Master Urahara would like to see you upstairs, Miss." Tessai beckoned me with a large, shrimp smelling hand and carried himself back up. An eye brow of mine rose as I followed the strange looking assistant without much hesitation.

My heart was pounding into my chest like a champion boxer by the time I reached my destination. The area had a very traditional Japanese esque vibe with doors and floor boards fashioned with the same form of soft and colorful looking wood. Every square inch was thick with an alluring, and velvet spice.

This time, I managed to gulp without coughing and making a fool out of myself. I followed Tessai through the small hallway into an even smaller room lodged on the left hand side. He slid the door open and revealed what looked like a petite office. Only difference was that instead of chairs, there were woven mats, equipped with an ebony table with a pot of tea releasing a thin curl of steam in the very center.

"Your shoes, Miss." The harshness of his voice caused a chill to ricochet down my spine. I winced as he looked back at me, with his glasses filled with light to where his eyes had an eerie look of not being directly visible. I had completely forgotten about the Japanese custom of shoe removal in households. It was a means of showing respect, I think. With the last fractions of my smile forming into a grimace, I stumbled a bit to take off my shoes. I set them outside the door, and turned back around to notice that Tessai had already began walking in the other direction.

'Okay then?' I found a mat with a panda that looked as though it was humping a stock of bamboo and sat on it. I crossed my legs focused on the steam floating out of the tea pot. A hazy silhouette of a man wearing forest green attire sat across from me.

"So, I see that you've decided to disobey orders again." Urahara's voice was calming, despite the accusation. I bit my lip.

"I don't think they were necessarily orders if you're in no position to control me to begin with." The words left my mouth before I decided what to say. Didn't think I'd be so bitchy? Jesus.

He began to scratch his beard, thoughtfully.

"Touche', even by my standards."

"Why did you want me up here? Seems sort of hypocritical if you ask me." I leaned forward.

"Well if memory serves, you were the one who started playing the hypocrite by coming back. Just thought I'd continue the game." He crossed his arms across his chest, yet was wearing his trademark half smile.

Damnit, he's still good.

"You've got me there, mister. But you still haven't answered my question. Or properly, at least." I felt like sticking out my tongue. Don't ask me why my playfulness began to rise out of nowhere. I liked the challenge and I couldn't deny this game of swaying authority.

"Well.." he began.

"It's not like you were planning to take that stubbornness with you out of my shop anytime soon. So I figured I'd offer you a little hospitality, out of spite. Coping with a monster, tradition calls it." I swear I was about to chuck a tea cup at him before he silenced my attempt.

He began to wave his hands in front of his face frantically. I tried to fight back laughing.

"Not that you're a monster by any means! I was just referring to your persistence was all." The steam mysteriously began to part in front of us, pushing him fully into view.

I also tried to fight back a blush.

"Here, take some of this, it'll ease your nerves, guaranteed." He poured himself a cup, and passed it over to me. I stretched out my hands to accept the source of the intoxicating scent.

Our fingertips grazed against one another for a fragment of a second. At that contact, an electric bolt of a sensation snaked through my nerves. I brought the cup over to me and set it down next to my empty one. It was awfully..nice..of him to replace my cup with his own like that. My bets are that it's poisoned. Then again, how could I turn down something so generous?

I just ended up staring down at it, questioning its contents.

"You should drink that stuff you know. Not like I'm trying to poison you or anything." He called to me quietly from across the table as he began to drink a cup of tea he fashioned himself.

My fingers eased around my cup. I lifted it soon after and rested it on my lips. Liquid velvet rushed down my throat and rocked my senses like a cradle. After a few sips, the atmosphere became much more relaxed. I began to wonder if this was the synopsis to falling into an eventual stupor.

"Th-thank you."

The shadows began to fade from beneath his eyes.

"You're very welcome, Miss—Yea, at this point, I think you're a little obligated to let me know your name."

I squinted at him through the steam enveloping my view of him rising from my cup. I blew a hole into it.

"Kisamu Nakata." I replied, watching his expressions carefully.

He cocked his head to the side, and scratched the top of his hat. His eyes broadened.

"Now that's an interesting name."

He stretched his arms and folded them behind his head, with his head tilted skyward, in thought.

"Why do you say that?" I wondered, inching my body over the edge of the table.

He just shook his head and brought a hand in front of him as a method of changing the subject.

"Look, I'll give you a job.." He began, with shadows filling his sockets beneath the brim of his hat once more. I felt my chest swell with a newborn optimism. There was no way in hell that it could be this easy.

"—Only if you deliver this one package for me."

My heart sank as the empty china cup below me rolled off of the edge of the table.


	7. Home Delivery

**Unexpected Chemical; Chapter 7:**

_Home Delivery _

--------------

The room had probably been silent for about a solid 2 ish minutes before the reality of the situation sunk into me. The entire time, I was watching the smoke curl around my nostrils and could have sworn that I was starting to see abstract shapes. Was this honestly all it took? There was something incredibly uneasy about this deal that he proposed. But meh, it was Urahara. How could I _possibly_ say no?

The blonde's familiar grin seemed to be the only legitimate factor within sight. I tried to stifle a small gulp.

"Alright, alright. I'll do it." I sighed.

"Lovely!' Urahara clapped his hands together in delight and looked over his shoulder. "Tessai, it's time to bring that damn thing over here. She gave in." He must have sounded like something similar to a happy little boy scout swindling away money from an unbeknownst family. About a minute or so later, the heavy thud of footsteps echoed from the northern corner of the office. A door slid, and Tessai strode over, bending down, and offering his master a neatly wrapped violet package. There was also a flimsy paper ribbon holding it together that had some kanji scribbled over it. Naturally, I couldn't read it.

"Thank you, Tessai."

"Of course, sensei."

"Hey, Nakata. This is what you'll be delivering for me; you are not to open it or even so much as peek beneath the wrapping for _any reason_." He stressed the last grip of his words as if he'd known of my habits long before I arrived. Everyone back in the norm' knows that I have a peculiar relationship with a vixen named Curiosity.

"Okay, okay I got it. Don't worry." I rolled my eyes noticeably I'd think. Even though I actually wanted to be on pitch perfect terms with him, I couldn't help but snarl as the familiar nagging penetrated my brain. Before I could digress into a passing memory, he snapped me out of my passivity.

"You're free to pick it up, any time." He stated simply. I saw the traces of an eye creep from under his hat, staring at me dead in the face. Fear crept up my spine.

I quietly rose from the table and walked over to Urahara's side. I bent over a little and began to ease the rough package into my hands.

He suddenly grasped my arm, digging his grip deep into my skin. What…the fuck, Kisuke. What the fuck. The tone of his voice was even more menacing than his grip.

"I was being serious about the whole 'no peeking' thing," he frowned before a smile etched at his mouth. "Well, you seem like you have some traces of a brain in you, so I'll leave this in your care." He eased his hand off of me and retreated to pulling it back with the other across his chest. No mutters or expressions of apology had followed.

"The address is written somewhere on that binding."

After he nodded his head, I took that as a cue to exit his office. I slid the package between my fingers, got up, found my shoes, and walked out of the door that was still partially open.

-------------------------------------------------

Once I managed to get back onto familiar grounds outside of his shoddy little shop, I immediately noticed that the day was beginning to come to a close. The old fluorescent sunshine that had cascaded through the surrounding trees had watered down into pink streaks of afternoon glaze. Instead of meeting a scattered field of younger children playing miscellaneous games on the pavement, I was only met with a field of quiet shadows.

"Jesus Christ, it's getting cold." I shuddered a bit as a thin frost of wind passed between my limbs. I held up the package closer to my face and tried to make out the address surrounded by scribbles of roughly drawn kanji symbols. It looked like a normal address like back in the states with the only differences being the elaborate sounding street and a smaller amount of numbers for the zip code.

I stared at the address a little longer and suddenly realized that I had absolutely no way of navigating around this town. I was as good as a ship sailing on a smog blanketed night with a broken light; I was basically screwed unless I had a map or someone to tell me how to get there. I turned around a few moments later, and stared into the glass doors before I gently tapped on them. No response.

About 2 ish minutes echoed by and I tapped again; nothing.

I then tried a more assertive approach and started knocking on the damn thing. Once again, no acknowledgement followed. I sighed.

"So you're just going to abandon me like that? I guess BS like that is no different here." Before I could stain up the cold, glass doors, I just walked ahead and into the one, narrow clearing for a road. Still no kids or people walking around. All I saw were a broken chain of empty parked cars, discarded trash, and felt a freezing temperature to complete the experience.

The only sounds I heard other than the rolling scratching of leaves were my footsteps. I tried to relax as the afternoon waded into a piercing dusk. The shadows lining the cars and small businesses only thickened as did my nerves. Just try imagining walking down a shady looking street around night time with hardly anyone around. Feels like the perfect freakin' set up for a horror movie, doesn't it?

I bit my bottom lip. I felt my teeth ease into my skin harder a few seconds later. A particularly large shadow looked as though it shrunk somewhere a few feet ahead. I stopped and swallowed an enormous gust of air. My eyes widened as I kneeled over and choked while still staring at the shifting darkness in front.

My choking made my breathing uneven and I almost stumbled backward. No, I actually ended up falling backwards…hard.

"SHIT." I clutched my burning throat while moaning slightly from the ache of falling on a little of my tail bone. Squinting, the shadow had apparently evaporated and left a blank patch of pavement ahead. I closed my eyes and sat back a little before I tried to get up off the ground.

Upon rising, I kept hearing mixed movements coming from various directions. If I looked ahead of me, the noise would come from behind me, if I looked to my side, it'd come from the opposite. Whatever it was kept shifting around to confuse me..and was extremely successful in scaring the shit out of me.

I gulped. "Damnit. I can't stay here."

Then, I remembered my request from Kisuke; '_If I abandon this assignment, then there'd be no way that he'd hire me, let alone see me as anyone worth trusting_.' I tried to relax my nerves by taking a deep breath and continuing to walk forward once exhaled. The prickling on my back just made a home on my skin and my muscles kept clenching as I heard those familiar unsettling sounds echo around the street.

This definitely had to be one of the most awful situations I experienced thus far. Every new advance in feet only heightened the deep and strangled breathing sounds I heard come from any given direction. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But I knew that doing so wouldn't earn me anything worthwhile.

…After some twenty minutes, I finally noticed a street sign that had a familiar name etched into its metal face that matched the name scribbled on my package..and I sprinted like a subdued pig all the way to the address.

You know that feeling you get when your gym teacher tells you to start running laps and you're about to collapse as soon as you finish? Yea, that's basically how I felt right then. I swear that someone had to be scraping butchers' knives through my insides as soon as my feet hit the pavement in front of the residence. What was "off" was the fact that it wasn't even a residence to begin with and it was actually just a small, clear lot. Old rugged gates outlined the area, and patches of newly grown weeds ate into the pavement. I frowned at it.

Who in the hell lived here? Whoever it might've been, I just shook my head, and walked forward. An even odder aspect of the vacant lot was that there was a small, rusted metal box over to the side lodged in a cradle of gates; it was a door bell. I lifted its top, and rested my package inside of it.

_I pressed the door bell. _

The bell must have at least woken up half of the neighborhood. As soon as my finger eased off of the button, a long, and old fashioned tune rang from it. Sweat began to drip down my forehead as I heard a crackling noise come from the other side of the field.

What was brilliant was that I couldn't move my legs. It felt as if someone had been coy and super glued my feet to the broken pavement. As you're most likely aware of by now; I started cursing the situation into oblivion.

"There's no fucking way, there's .WAY." My breathing began to cut off a bit as my fear beat through my chest. I looked over my shoulder and desperately tried to move my legs. I looked as hopeless as an abandoned marionette.

A large, and very close "thump" hit the ground from somewhere beyond my sight.

The ground shook and my vision was met with a pair of almond shaped, glowing white eyes. The rattling breath that echoed was now a warm sensation tickling my skin. It smelled of rotting flesh..

I started to make tiny little moans in frustration from trying to move my feet.

"You were stupid to come here on your own." It spoke. Its voice sounded as if it was trapped in between dimensions. It was high pitched and had an animalistic touch. Instead of responding, I tried to give it space by leaning my torso backward.

"Your spiritual pressure feels different compared to the other ones.. even though there's hardly anything there." It seemed to be getting closer with every few words. My eyes widened as I watched a silhouette manifest in the light fog that accompanied it in the area.

'DAMNIT!' I kept gulping every few seconds as the creature walked toward me. Basing from its repetition of footsteps, the thing had to have at least two pairs of legs. I wish I hadn't realized that because it made me muse that I was probably going to be eaten by an animal.

At last..it approached.

"You're such a pretty little thing. Your insides are probably sweet."

I was definitely right in predicting that it had four legs. Its body was a smooth mix of off white and silver, its front legs were large, blunt spikes outlined with coursing veins. Its back legs were a little smaller, its frame had a severely muscular build and its head looked nearly human, except that it was drenched in red stripes. Half of its face was etched with traces of a skull. It was basically a 20 foot, militant form of an arachnid.

I felt small gushes of warm liquid run down my inner thighs and slide off of my ankles. I was so scared that I was beginning to pee in my pants.

….It struck the side of my chest with one of its enormous, pointed legs. I didn't see it coming.

The pain was undeniable.

The wound was as if it was caused by the thick shell of a gunshot. I felt the blood splash onto my cheeks from the force of the impact. My legs were suddenly released, and I crashed onto the ground, barely holding myself up with my left arm.

'Why did Urahara..set me up like this?'


	8. Death And All His Friends part 1

Unexpected Chemical; Chapter 8:

Death and all His Friends (part 1) :

I finally screamed my lungs out.

The feeling burned through each layer of my dermis and left a few small pieces of skin speckled across the darkening grass of the field. My eyes were shot open, my senses were alert, and my entire body cringed from that single, definite strike.

My heart kept pounding into my chest as if it, like myself..was desperate to escape. For the first time, I was silently begging for my life.

I smelt a combination of the stench of my body mingled with the scent of hundreds of rotting bodies decomposing in the creature's stomach. It was flooding my nostrils, and I began to cough and spit up small amounts of digested tea, water, and saliva since I technically had nothing to vomit out from my stomach.

"At this point, I think I'm right in saying that I don't have to _catch _my dinner this afternoon." Its voice was beginning to drag out its words, like it was trying to hold itself back from..devouring something.

But my legs..could move.

I exhaled and started to slowly ease my body backwards, centimeter by centimeter. I found a thick stone on the ground, and slipped it between my fingers.

'I have no choice.'

"I'm surprised that I was even able to hit you. I'm accustomed to a rotten shinigami stopping—" Its words were cut off as I used every last bit of strength in my arm to chuck the stone straight into its face. It didn't get too far, but managed to hit the middle of its forehead.

"You little--!" Before it could growl, I was already sprinting in the opposite direction, back toward the lane that I had walked to get there. With each lunge in distance I took, I had to grasp the pain in my chest to keep any more blood from flowing out of it. It felt as though someone was constantly cutting into me from the combination of my chest heaving, and its wound already in place.

I heard it running after me and I heard every foot it took with pounding its gigantic body into the ground, chasing hungrily.

Every other minute, I wanted to just collapse onto the ground below me, but I couldn't bring myself to. At one point or another, I tasted a warm, metal taste on the back of my tongue and felt it leave long drops down the sides of my mouth.

It was blood.

My mouth began to continue to spill more of it every few minutes, and I couldn't prevent it. My energy was exhausting itself and I was reaching the point where I was forcing my body to keep moving when it was at its peak.

But I felt it gaining on me and there was barely enough distance to prevent it from jumping on me if it wanted to. I watched as its shadow slowly crept over mine in inches as I tried to out run it. Truthfully, I wasn't even running that fast and my speed had undeniably lost momentum over time. I was thankful for my sub doer's size.

I finally approached the glass doors of Urahara's shop. I was within some twenty feet of it before my body finally broke down.

"no..NO, NO, NO!" I cried my words out as the creature's shadow blanketed my body in a cold, still darkness. I still held onto where it had pierced me. Most of my arm down to my elbow was soaked with the river of my own insides.

I was on my back staring up at the silver being outlined against the starless, crimson sky.

"I wonder how many of your bones I'll have to find a way to pick out of my teeth?" It sneered as it lifted its pointed mammoth of a leg again to finish the job. I wanted to dodge it, I wanted to roll away..but the only remaining strength I had was to shut my eyes and hope for the nearing pain to ease away.

…..but it never came.

I heard the mutter of a distant, yet familiar voice echo from a few feet behind my head. I tilted my head backward a little and saw a very blurry alignment of horribly contrasting green colors. My eyes focused on them for a few more moments before my eyelids drooped and covered my eyes every fraction from any more strain.

Only a sliver of color was left.

Then; only a slip of a streak of light.

Darkness.

I was unconscious.

"_Was that really necessary?"_

"_It was the best that I could do for this situation. Besides, seeing as I'm pretty sure you felt that awkward surge of energy earlier, you shouldn't blame me for wanting to test it."_

"_Well, now you know that it's blatantly obvious that there wasn't any harm done, except of course for what you've done to her."_

"_If I know you any better, I think it's safe to say that you'd do much, much worse."_

There was a chuckle.

"_Yeah, but I wouldn't try to actually kill someone I was this intrigued by. Come to mention it, how much longer do you think your little lab rat is going to be knocked out?"_

A small amount of wheezing was heard from how much laughing ensued from this.

"_Coming from as you are now, I find it natural that you'd call her such a thing."_

This voice continued.

"_But as far as recovery goes, she should be fine. I didn't want our usual nurse over because I wanted to just keep this with us here."_

A snort came from the other person.

"_Sure, but for how long?"_

I felt my eye lids lift over my irises inch by inch every few minutes. After quite some time, I finally moved each of my limbs a little and felt the soft material of a warm blanket resting on top of my skin. As soon as I tried to reach for it, however, a sharp pain twinged in my chest and I moaned in frustration.

When I moved my hand across it, I felt another material that seemed to be fitted from my right shoulder down to a little above the side of my torso, as far as feeling around goes. What…happened to me?

I also noticed how I was in a very dimly lit room. Upon finally gritting my teeth together to take the pressure of lifting my torso off the ground and leaning back on my arm, I saw that the contents of it were very simple. The entire room had both the smell and sight of being completely made in a very sultry form of wood. There was also a small vase of flowers in the far corner, a table and a chair, and a door that had been left open by an inch or so.

A stream of a golden hallway light poured through the narrow space it was given into my room. I yawned.

"Wha-What's going on?" Despite the nagging lurking mysterious pain in my chest, I got on all fours and crawled over to the blinding door light. I eased it open.

My eyes were met with long, dark, and slender legs. As my gaze continued north, I was suddenly face to face with what looked like a much older version of myself with a shorter jaw, starkly golden eyes, and long black hair with purple streaks from where it was hit by the light. She was also wearing a petite orange militant outfit.

My memory suddenly caved with a short scene of the woman sitting on a small throne, and another of her standing in a line of taller figures, each wearing a carefully decorated white cape..or a haori as some would call it.

Wait..

wait..you're kidding me?

"You..You're..you're..Yoruichi. This is fucking bullshit." My eyes shot open.

"Well, hey there. I'm glad to see that you're recovered enough to use a potty mouth." I didn't know what to say. I watched as a small smile crept onto her gorgeous, dark face.

"You see that I'm obviously..ssspeechless."

"I also see that you stutter when you're nervous. That's typical." I felt heat rise onto my cheeks and I tried to back away into my little welcoming darkness. I was a coward; Damnit, this woman..

"Whoa, whoa, hey. Where do you think you're going? Kisuke wants to see how you're doing." I kept backing up, regardless. My chest wasn't having fun either with how much moving I was doing, apparently.

"Well, sure but he….no wait.." An unpleasant and very recent memory of me panting like hell and running for my life from a large, retarded looking spider of a creature rolled into my brain.

"—Wait, he's the one who put me up to all of this! YOU CAN TELL HIM THAT HE CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF." My expression firmed, but I began to whine from the pain sinking back into me.

"I should technically slap you for speaking out of line about someone who basically saved your life. But you're funny, so you can relax." After I backed up to the point where I was getting sick of being on the floor, I used both of my hands to work myself up to a standing, half limping position.

I noticed that I was at least a couple of inches taller than she was. I felt a very brief surge of ignorant dominance.

"Since you know my name, then you should already know that you shouldn't let my size fool you." She smirked. I felt a laugh come in the form of an uneasy cough out of my throat.

"So, where's the horrible fashionista?" I asked, clinging onto the door panel, with my chest twinging like crazy, yet still managed to do so with a casual tone.

She turned away from me in a single direction that pointed down the hall.

"He's lurking somewhere around that corner, I think."

As I tried to walk forward, I felt my hand grab onto her shoulder for support before I stopped myself from hitting the floor.

"You're as stubborn as Ichigo for not giving a damn about your injuries, I swear." She shook her head and chuckled as she started to walk down the hall.

"Come on, now. If you want to talk to him, then you should _at least_ get there on your own." Then to be a common douche, or as females, what we refer to as a _show off_, she decided to hop a step and suddenly transported onto the other side of the hallway.

"Okay, now you're just trying to be lulzy." It took me at least a minute to get my act together to walk forward cautiously.

"I'm trying to be..what?" She raised an eyebrow as she rounded the corner and disappeared through the door way that was already slid open.

"Haha oh yea, no internet memes in actual speech." I mumbled to myself as it took me another four or so minutes to limp over to the sliding door. I worked myself in through the opening. The entire room felt extremely nostalgic of a classic Bleach episode where the team would meet up at Urahara's and he'd give them a briefing of their enemy around a large coffee table; this was that particular room. I suddenly stumbled and dropped onto my back before I crawled onto a side of the table. Urahara was sitting at the shortest and furthest end as always, with Yoruichi sitting cross-legged at his right hand side. Yet another lightly steaming tea pot was at its center.

I sat the furthest away from either of them and tried to keep myself from choking from how extremely shy I felt at that moment.

He whipped his fan out of his pocket and began to fan himself with it while tinges of pink lined his cheeks. "We're so glad to see that you're not _dead_, Nakata!" I frowned at him and mused hitting him a top the head with that teapot.

Yoruichi yawned and folded her hands behind her head.

"Well, if it wasn't for the fact that you miraculously managed to run all the way back here, you wouldn't have been given the courtesy." She glanced over at me, before looking back at Urahara.

"I have a feeling that she most likely would have starved if you didn't bring her here, good job, Kisuke." She closed her eyes and rested her back against the wall behind her. Jesus..I didn't remember her being so bitchy? I guess typical episodes must have sugar coated a few things.

Urahara put his fan down.

"At any rate, you at least proved that you could complete your task without too much hesitation." A genuine smile crept across his face.

"—Even though you should technically be dead."


	9. Raspberry Intervention

Unexpected Chemical; Chapter 9:

* * *

Raspberry Intervention

* * *

The silence that cycled between Urahara and I made me get ridiculously tense. I didn't bother looking over at Yoruichi because she was just leaning back on the wall behind her with her arms propped behind her head apathetically. My eyes were fixed on how still his expressions were despite him smirking only moments ago. I coughed.

"…Technically?"

"Obviously." He replied nonchalantly.

"Well, do I get the job?" I asked while feeling myself edge over the table in anticipation.

"Hmmm…." he scratched his beard. "Yoruichi, what do you think?" He turned his head. She only yawned again and flicked an eye open. This entire situation was beginning to seem a lot more drawn out than I hoped for.

"..You might as well hire the girl. I really don't think that she'll stir up any trouble.." She chuckled softly. "--Especially concerning the state that she's in. It's one of the most fragile states for a human anyway." Urahara frowned at her.

"Hey! But I'm hu--" She cut him off by stretching her leg and kicking him backwards with it. He skid a few feet before he quickly snapped back into his regular composure while waving a white fan to his face.

"--Anyway, back to what I was saying. I agree that you're qualified for this job as it seems. But since you're injured, this cuts down your options by an eeny weeny bit. This basically means that instead of doing any actual labor, you'll get the luxury of delivering packages around the city.." I winced at him and opened my mouth to argue.

"-But I wasn't finished, see? You'll be delivering them by motor-scooter. You know, since I figured I'd give your back a break and all.." He shot a genuine smile over at me and I felt a blush creep across my skin. My eyes darted away from him, yet I still responded.

"Alright, I'm pretty sure that I can do that. When do I start?"

"--You can start in two days time. That's when I'm having my next shipment come in." He rose and walked over to me while holding a cup of tea to his lips. "We'll just have a friend of ours nurse your wounds. He's the only person who doesn't deserve to be sitting on his ass right now." My eye brows rose in curiosity as I followed him out of the room. We walked down the hall for a few moments before he whacked his cane a couple of times against another sliding door.

"..WAKE UP." A string of collected mutters and the sounds of multiple things falling echoed out of the room before it slid open a minute later. My eyes were met with a long tangle of magenta locks that towered over me but was at equal height with Kisuke. My jaw dropped. This was bullshit..this couldn't be…?

"Kisamu, this dead beat is Renji. Renji, this lovely little lady is Kisamu. Play nice you two." Renji's eyes suddenly shot open. "Who are YOU calling a dead beat?!" His teeth ground into each other threateningly.

"Ooh, Renji. Its not quite nice to grind your teeth at your land lord, now is it?" He playfully grabbed his neck with the hook of his cane before releasing him and walking way with a confident stride. "Be a good male nurse for me, Renji!" Renji only growled back him from our end of the hallway. I tried to ease the awkward cluster of growls.

"…And where did you come from?" He asked, looking at me oddly while I stuck out a hand to greet him. It took me a little while to come up with a response. "Oh, I'm just visiting." Bad save, bad save.

"..then you almost had your vitals ripped out by a hollow on your way here?"

"Yeah, s-some.." My little tendency to become flustered came back from the dead. I couldn't even complete a sentence. I fought to be coherent.

"It wasn't the best thing that's happened to me. Can you help me out?" I realized that I had started to lean more into the door way and I showed him the bandages that were fitted across my stomach. He mumbled something out of frustration and moved into his bedroom. I slid the door a little further and eased in. The entire room looked as though it was meant for someone who was usually on the go. The walls were bare and the floor had a hoard of horribly printed clothes scattered across it, a tangle of sheets in the corner and a small table that was the support system for a mountain of candy wrappers. He knocked down the mountain with a sweep of his hand and dangled a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a roll of bandages in front of my face.

"..Nah ah ah. You aren't getting ANY of this until you tell me where you came from." His gaze was sharply fixed into mine. I gulped.

"..I'm from here. Born and raised, everything."

"That's a total lie. If that's the case, then how come I've never seen you before?" He pressed his face inches away from mine. I felt the heat flaring from beneath his nostrils rage like a hostile bull.

"--That's the thing though. You don't really notice things until you start looking for them, am I right?" I darted my eyes away from him and slowly eased my fingers around what he was keeping from me since he was distracted. Before I clamped my hands around them, the door quickly slid open.

"Renji, you pervert." Yoruichi sneered as her eyes crossed back and forth between the two of us. She folded her arms and swung her hair off of her shoulder. "…Kisuke says that he's going to kick you out unless you redress her wounds." The red head's eyes shot open once again.

"What is this? Make-Renji-Suffer Day?" He asked as she walked out a moment later. I laughed nervously.

"Here, just lay down on those sleeping bags over there…"

* * *

(Urahara's Living Room)

* * *

"Kisuke, you must be stupid for keeping her here with us."

"Aww, you're suddenly doubting me, Yoru-san?"

"Barely. Its more so that something about her seems foreign and I can't place it."

"Indeed. But that's the whole point of her being here." Her neck cracked.

"..What?"

"I mean its simple really. That's the nature of science. If you find an anonymity, you study it until you discover its origins."

"..So we're tricking her."

"Barely. Its more so that we're keeping a watchful eye over her."

"Yeah, but by hiring her?"

"Why not?"

"I understand your scheme with this. Its rather deviant, as I expected from you. But she's obviously been lying to you to some extent. Especially considering that she had fallen from the sky, for gods' sake."

He chuckled.

"And here I thought that cats liked guinea pigs?"

* * *

(Renji's Room)

* * *

This had to be the most awkward situation I experienced in my sixteen years of living. My eyes were locked on the ceiling as I tried to pull them away from the fact that Renji was hunched over me rewrapping my wounds. It wasn't a circumstance where I had to "OMFG GET NAKED," but none the less, I was lying on my back with my shirt pushed up a little above my torso, under my breasts. What made it even more unchangingly awkward was that I had been blushing hard for at least a good 10 minutes. It honestly got to the point where I kept giggling nervously like an idiot because I couldn't come up with anything to say to him.

"…Haha, you've got a stomach!" He teased, while poking his finger into the squishy fat of my stomach.

"SHUT THE HELL UP," I shot back at him maliciously. I considered kicking him.

"Well, if you're going to be THAT ungrateful.." A devilish smirk broadened across his face as he dumped at least a handful of rubbing alcohol onto one of the deeper gashes. I screamed and my limbs jerked in his direction.

"…DAMNIT. That hurt!" His neck twisted back to me, revealing a large red shiner on the side of his face. I had apparently gotten my wish.

He got up a minute or so later, mumbling that his job was done and walked out of the room.

I sat there ..completely dumbfounded.


	10. The Stars Are Our Friends

I was probably staring at the door that was freshly ajar for about five minutes. I was still trying to absorb what happened, or at least a better sense of it. Did I really make him that mad? Even though the typical person would have used this as the perfect opportunity to roll into sleep here on the floor, I picked myself up. A few moments later, I was sluggishly easing out into the hall way to find the temperamental shinigami. It took a good few minutes to make sense of where the exits were since it wasn't the architecture I was used to with doors and knobs and simple walk ways. I eventually found myself back at the cashier station near the front of Urahara's shop. Despite Renji redressing my wounds, I leaned against the side of the register table, wrapping my arms around myself.

"Ugh. Where is he?" I moaned in frustration as I watched a few colors flash before my eyes on the other side of the sliding glass window panes. "…"--The hell is going on?" I squinted and leapt backwards as a body crashed through the front doors.

"Aaaaaaaaaarghhhhhh!" Renji groaned as he struggled to get himself off of the ground. He wasn't wearing his horribly mismatched clothes anymore. He was wearing his usual black and white shinigami attire, with his hair tied up into its usual spikes. He used Zabimaru as a support system to swing back through the gaping hole that he created. Glass shards scattered across the floor as he flew past.

I stood there awe struck as I watched him fight a gigantic hollow that was shaped like a devilish mammoth that shone like a ferocious bleeding elephant against the moonlight.

"--KISA!" - A large piece of debris of mangled trash cans hit in my direction. I panicked and dove into the opposite direction. I felt blood trickle somewhere in my mouth from where I fell. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? MOVE DAMNIT!" Before I could react, I suddenly felt myself being roughly dragged across the tile floor. I tried to kick my legs against it but it only clung onto me tighter.

10 seconds - I dug my nails into the ground as the force pulled me across the pavement

30 seconds - My blood pressure violently shoots up as I'm being tossed into the air and then suddenly dropped

50 seconds - My jaw, hip bone, elbow, forearm, knees and skull hit the ground with an alarming crash. I feel new sores develop on certain spots on my limbs.

"SHIT!" - The creature had its trunk wrapped tightly around my body. The more I moved, the more pressure was added. I started gasping for air as it tried to suffocate me. I could hardly scream as loudly as I wanted to since the oxygen was rapidly being shut off from my lungs.

The trunk suddenly loosened and I slipped beneath the trunk and started to fall. But Renji was lucky enough to grab me.

"The hell' is wrong with you? You move like you're 400 pounds or something!" He spat into my face, clearly aggravated as he held me and miraculously blocked the creature's trunk-punch attacks with his sword. I muttered 'I'm sorry' to him because at this point, I hardly had the strength to cuss him out, despite everything.

Within at least a few more minutes, I felt my body being rested on the cold pavement as I watched Renji unleash the finishing blow to the hollow's neck, removing its head completely. I smiled at the now blood soaked shinigami as he turned in my direction. I swear to God, his stare was something different.

…I heard the distinct echo of clogs resonate in the distance and when I started to nod off because the pain quickly migrated from tolerable to knock out status. "Renji, can't you do anything right? You weren't supposed to leave her half dead."

"Pffft. You're one to talk."

I suddenly felt my body rising and pressing against a firm smooth chest. I was waiting for the soothing aroma of japanese spice before my nostrils were betrayed with the scent of vanilla mingled with fish. "Don't look so surprised to see me, do you?" she chuckled in a low whisper as she hoisted me over her back as she tried to move back into the shop. However, she didn't get very far.

"ARGH!" She yelled as a large spiked trunk shot in her direction and smashed down on top of her. Yet she managed to roll over just in time, with it barely missing her by a few inches. She whipped her head over my way then stared daggers at Renji, who was currently baffled and cursing at the fact that the once headless hollow had hydra'd itself out and now had 3 new heads.

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME." I sat there, mortified as Renji and Yoruichi each struggled to subdue the savage elephant. Even though Yoruichi was obviously the stronger one, the energy she neatly channeled into her attacks still didn't knock out the appendages coming her way. I had to do something.

Even though every single cell in my body was collectively screaming to stay put or at least crawl way, I pushed my body to ease myself out of my shaded protected darkness. Blood spewed out of my sides as I began to tremble when I finally managed to walk correctly. I didn't even feel like myself. I suddenly felt this natural instinct ……to move forward and fight.

"KISA, WHAT ARE YOU---?" Renji screamed as I drew closer. What was odd was that even though i was internally freaking out, I felt a trickle of calm somewhere in looking up at the night sky for a few moments. The stars twinkled like freshly cut diamonds and the moon gee nerously washed the wreckage and bloodshed in a pale, unforgiving light. As each second passed, the pores on my skin began to tingle as though they were being kissed with alcohol. One by one, little twinkles of my own began to form across my arms. By the time I had tuned Renji's chain of insults back in, the area from my elbows to my finger tips were lightly glowing and fading with color.

It felt as if I had to..put this new found energy somewhere… I raised my arm in the air and a large ellipse formed off of my skin and into the air in front of me. It was about the size of my head. When I tried to touch it, it felt hot to the touch. What was I supposed to do?

"Try firing it off or throwing it!" Yoruichi called over to me while she dodged a series of attacks aimed at her. I hesitated and grabbed hold of the ring and flung it over in the hollow's direction like a chakram. It got slightly bigger the further it went before it roughly smacked into the creature and pierced a large portion of skin on the neck of its middle head. It howled in pain and began to charge in the direction of Urahara's shop. Renji and Yoruichi chased after it but before it was within at least a few feet of the shop, Urahara dropped in front of the shattered sliding door panes from the roof above. He formed a shield like bubble that materialized with every strike the hollow threw at him. He glanced over at me.

A smile spread across his lips. "Ms. Nakata, if you wouldn't mind, I'll need another one of those handy spirit rings." I stood there dumbfounded for a moment before I understood what he meant. I mumbled an inaudible apology as I rose another arm into the air and waited for another one to appear. As commanded, a ring did appear, but it was distinctively fainter than before. I slid my fingers across it and spun it over to him. It flew through the air and landed like a bangle around his wrist.

He moved the ring between both of his hands and with a flick, they were suddenly neatly divided in two. He continued the process until he had about six smaller rings and he twirled his hand around in a circle until they all followed each other in one large ring. Finally, the barrier between him and the hollow subsided and he drew a thick, bleeding gash into the animal. The gash spread through out its entire body and it howled one last time before crashing sideways onto the ground beneath it. A black pool coated its demise.

"….And THAT is how to slay a hollow with a little team work!" Urahara exclaimed, perking up to the disgruntled faces of Renji and Yoruichi as they walked towards the shop. Before Renji set foot near there, however, he towered over me and scooped me into his arms. I felt a combination of utter excitement and disgust as I blushed against the bulging muscles, yet winced at the putrid smell of hot sweat sticking to his skin alongside me.

"Can there be a minute where you're NOT a a damn damsel in distress?" He commented dryly as my eyes fought a bold fight to stay open once we were protected in the comforting shadows of the shop. I eventually lost and the last thing I remembered was the feeling of being laid down on something soft, yet a tad uncomfortable on the floor somewhere………….

~ Urahara's Office ~

"….Aye, I think I'll have to call Orihime down for this." The scruffy blonde sighed as he folded his arms against his chest. Renji wanted to angrily retort at how this was probably all Urahara's fault, but the most he could stab him with was a lazy glare. His wounds were starting to get to him.

"I think its safe to say that we suffered a few figurative casualties in the name of 'science.' " Yoruichi flatly stated.

"Aww, Yoru-san, you make it seem as if you had no faith in me!" He pouted and batted a playful fan at her. Despite her wanting to tear his head off, friend or not, her demeanor relaxed as his had.

"Either way, can we say that we're done experimenting? And the little lab rat successfully passed through the maze, even though it only chewed through the walls to get to the end?" she asked, before adding -…"And I already assume that you're going to tell us what sort of power she was using exactly."

Urahara grinned and actually took off his hat. "I'm not 100% sure of this, but I believe its called 'Cosmic Radiation.' Basically meaning that Ms. Nakata sleeping a room away can harness and manipulate the power of the stars." As soon as he finished, he was met with two faces of questioning, yet equally shocked stares.

"….I saw Rukia trying to do research on that once. There's only 2 people on record that have clarified that it exists. There's hardly even enough data or theory to support it. Someone with THAT kind of power..can't be real." He shook his head and glanced at the open room behind him. " …There's no way. I'll call you out for bullshit on this one, Urahara."

"You act so surprised to hear what it is, even though you each solidify another 'two' people to have seen it with your own eyes." Yoruichi rolled her eyes and arched her back against the wall, like usual. "Well, at least that explains things."

"This also means that her training begins right after her wounds fully heal with Orihime's help in a few days. It became blatantly obvious that whatever she has doesn't revolver around her own critical condition." A light shadow passed over his eyes.

"--It relies on the critical conditions…of everyone else."


	11. Strawberry Fields

Chapter 11:

_**Strawberry Fields **_

I faintly remembered actually having a remotely pleasing dream up until I was awakened by a mysterious wetness on my lower stomach. My mind was on the verge of coming to a severely perverted conclusion before I felt around and discovered nothing but a wet cloth in that area instead of..anything else.

"...Jesus Christ. I don't think I need a scare like THAT any time soon." Once I grabbed the now identifiable object with a sigh, my vision skewed around a bewildered pair of eyes staring back at me.

"Umm...who-?" The eyes belonged to a large forehead and a long, evenly brushed mane of tangerine orange hair.

"Wait, wait. You're...something with an "O." Ormi? Ordinance? Ori...crap." She only responded with a nervous little giggle and folded her arm behind her head.

"It's Orihime, haha. It's a pleasure to meet you, Kisamu."

"How did you know my name?" It was a stupid question. Orihime's smile didn't fade, however.

"Oh, well Urahara made an unexpected call to my house about an hour ago. He told me that your wounds were too severe to stall for any longer." While she was explaining, the word 'stall' stung as distinctly as the gashes on my stomach. I rolled my eyes.

She continued. "So, I hurried over and spent a good little while healing you up. I was only trying to rinse you off because there was still blood sticking to your skin."

"Thank you, honestly. I'm pretty sure I'd be dead if it wasn't for you." I gave her a genuine smile and actually tried to move forward to hug her before a sharp pain through my ribs. I fell back onto the bedding cursing up a storm.

"Yeah, I really don't think that you should move right now," she suggested with her high pitched voice. But as much as she tried to gently push me down, the more incentive I gained to get myself up for the third time here.

"But Ki-Kisamu?" I left her sitting on her knees pouting at me while I opened the bedroom door. I shrugged in apology.

The smell of the awkward combination of fish and scrambled eggs was almost unbearable, which was a signal that it must obviously be morning already. I scowled as I made my way

towards the source of the smell. Within a few minutes I had managed to find my way into a small, yet comfortable little breakfast nook. I sat myself down and stared at the constantly moving back of Tensai as I watched him handle at least several different frying pans at once.

I yawned noisily and rested my head on the table. "I'm so gone..." Before I could regain a few minutes of beauty rest, the sizzle and crackle of fresh bacon on a plate toppled on the table in my direction. My eyes fluttered open as I reluctantly stared at the thick slabs of juicy, delicious fried piglet.

"Master Urahara recommends that you spend this morning eating as much as possible to help gain the rest of your strength back. I also might add that I don't believe that I'm not too bad of a cook either, if I do say so myself." My eyes widened in disbelief as his answer implied that he had somehow sensed my great dislike for eating 'fish' so closely with regular food. Then again...no one inside this breakfast nook was normal to begin with.

As I tried to 'attempt' to configure the otherwise simplistic use of chopsticks between my fingers, my focus was destroyed as a roughly colorful figure materialized in my peripheral vision ahead. Since I was still looking down at my bacon, I only heard it loudly knock its fist against the entryway. _"Hey, are YOU the one that everyone's going on about?" _

I looked up and literally felt some of the bacon I managed to stab into submission catch in my throat and choke me a little. Before I could answer, I made all sorts of disturbing sounds fighting to digest it. Ichigo Kurosaki shrugged and sat down in front of me with his arms crossed, head tilted to the side.

"You're honestly a lot better looking than Renji made you out to look like when he was yelling about you in my ear this morning." I winced as I heard this.

"...The fuck' did that idiot tell you?" I said much louder than I intended, which caused the once happily popping greases to suddenly stop. He leaned back and slapped his hand to his forehead.

"Jeez, I don't even know cause' it was so much shit. He kept making you out to be some hideous **monster** or something." I actually leaned over the table and yanked him back into position, staring daggers at him.

"Whoa, lady..what the?-"

"You TELL him that I am going to kick his ass SO hard that he'll wish he never had to take a shit afterwards!" Ichigo's expression rapidly transitioned from being angered to actually laughing hysterically.

"Yeah, Yeah. I'll make sure to get the message to him. Just let me go, okay? Hahahahahhaa." He harked up another laugh before a very feminine looking cat pounced on top of his head, causing him to spaz out, and hopped onto a cleared spot on the table.

"You make as much racket as Kurosaki, I swear. I just sincerely hope you're not equivalent to how much of an idiot he is." The cat purred and softly hissed as Ichigo tried to grab her tail. She ended up slapping him with it instead and I giggled.

"It's a relief to see that you're finally healed." Yoruichi replied in mid strangle with Ichigo's neck. As I gave her a 'thanks,' he snapped out of her grip and gasped for air.

"...Oh yeah, and what was this about you unleashing some sort of weird energy when everyone was nearly done for?"

I hesitated. "Well, I don't actually know how any of that happened. It just sort of...came out of me all at once." I avoided eye contact with him as he tried to stifle an obvious chuckle.

"That's what SHE SAID." A few moments later, he was suddenly popped on the head with a delicate little green fan.

"Ooooh, Ichigo. You're such an unnecessary pervert!" called a cheerful familiar voice. Ichigo growled in discontent as he rubbed his head.

"Give it a break will ya?" Completely ignoring his wails of pain, Urahara stepped in front of him, blocking him from view as he bent down to get a closer look at me. My eyes instantly shot to a particular spot on the table.

"Have you two at least introduced yourselves?-" He teased, before continuing.

"-Oh wait, you mentioned that you knew about Ichigo, I believe?" His smile broadened as he fashioned himself a seat in between us.

"Well, more or less. I mean who can go anywhere without hearing Ichigo from a few miles away?" I explained, shooting them a nervous side grin. This quick save earned me an approving chuckle from Urahara and an uneasy glare from said strawberry.

"Anyway, I'm Kisamu Nakata. I already know that its a definite pleasure to meet you." I stretched out a hand across the table. He just stared down at it and folded his arms across his chest. While still glaring, he mumbled, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ichigo Kurosaki."

Urahara happily clapped his hands together and I could have sworn that little classic anime-esque hearts and stars started dancing around his head. Yoruichi shook her head and made a leering glance at Ichigo as she caught him trying to dip her tail into a freshly fried plate of scrambled eggs. Without thinking much of it, I actually picked her up and protectively secured her in my lap.

Ichigo was bewildered. "The hell'? No one EVER DOES THAT."

After eventually migrating out of the kitchen, we were situated around the front of Urahara's shop freshly and partially demolished from the previous night. It wasn't ridiculously terrible despite a good deal of the roof panes and glass windows were missing and that was the gist of it. We could have easily had this fixed up with a bit of focused spirit energy, however..this was the real world and I'm pretty sure that Urahara wouldn't want to deal with wiping the memories of at least a hundred people witnessing miscellaneous objects floating in and out of town.

"..So I'd GREATLY appreciate it if you all could repair the damage you did to my humble abode last night," he clapped his hands in a conclusive agreement while Yoruichi perched herself comfortably around his shoulders. Renji's jaw dropped at least several inches.

"And why is SHE suddenly getting a pass from all of this?"

Urahara grinned.

"Well you see, Yoruichi-san and I have very important matters to discuss that will most certainly require her uttmost attention!" He teased, batting a fan playfully at him. Renji only scoffed at the explanation and turned in the other direction.

"Heads up, dipshit!" called Ichigo as he tossed a pile of broken boards to him. Sadly, the poor guy didn't see it coming and the last that was seen of his face was a pair of angry eyes before he crashed to the ground in a puff of dirt.

I started collecting pane fragments off of the ground and stacked them up against the side of the shop while the boys were quarreling over who could carry the most amount of debris in one piece. After some time, the three of us collapsed on top of Urahara's kitchen floor exhausted and covered in sweat.

"..Ey. Where's Orihime?" Kurosaki asked blankly from the bottom of our dog pile.

"How am I supposed to know?" Renji shot back in a strained voice because he unfortunately lacked the strength to kick his ass at the moment. Ichigo picked himself up and eventually began to wonder out of the shop. Before he left, he turned his head as half of his face was darkened by a fading sunset.

"..Hey, I'll see you guys later. Nice' meeting you, Kisamu."


	12. Family

Chapter 12

"_**Family."_**_

-"…Ugh. I have such a head ache right now," were my first string of words upon awaking to the enclosure of a dark room with little streams of light gleaming out of a crack from a door nearby. At this point, I was already getting used to feeling confined.

When I tried to rise, I felt a quick pain in my torso, which caused the rest of my body to suddenly spring into an Amber Alert. I moaned out in frustration and moved into a more comfortable position on the bed of blankets I was resting on. Within the next few minutes, I heard the door ease open. I instinctively buried myself into a few of the blankets, away from the light.

"…Despite Inoue's healing, you still shouldn't be moving in the state you're in, missy," a familiar soft voice penetrated the silence. I turned my head to see Urahara leaning on the side wall with hims arms hidden behind his sleeves. Something about him standing so comfortably within the darkness put me on edge, yet intrigued me at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah I know. But I'm not exactly a vegetable. And I love it how you say that _after_ you command me to do your dirty work," I commented dryly while carefully trying to read his expressions, even though there was only a twitch of a casual smile.

"Observant one, aren't you? _Despite_ the fact that you couldn't apply that to the battle that almost completely cost me my shop yesterday." The tone in his voice was harsher than normal and I couldn't even come up with a proper response to that. He suddenly hocked up a laugh.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding!" he waved his hands in front of him, jokingly before moving forward a few feet. I didn't realize what was coming before he was sitting beside me in my little nest of blanket material.

"Does this mean that I still have my job?" I actually scooted away from him a bit or else I'd be suffering from a fever from how hot my face was getting with him so close by. He began to play with his fan between his fingers.

"Oh definitely. We just had to test you to make sure that you're good and healthy before I send you off for any assignments." He smiled.

"So..when do I start then?"

"Hmm..." He started scratching the back of his head in thought. I rolled my eyes assuming that he was most likely kidding.

"I think that I actually have a few packages that need some shipping. But.." I saw his eyes peak through the shadows. "-But I think that it'd be _best_ if you started your training today."

"T-training? For ..what?" I stammered, even though I should have seen this coming.

"At this point, I think that I have a pretty good idea that you're definitely not from around here...Yet you lack the basic necessities in order to work with us. So, I've decided to develop whatever it is that you have so you won't be ripped to shreds whenever something goes wrong. Do you understand?" Even though there was a casual smirk on his face, I felt all of the color drain from my mocha tinged skin.

"You look grim," he teased as I buried my face in my hands.

"Ugh. So I guess I should ..change into some sweats or something?" I asked while trying to shake the tiredness from my limbs.

"Yeah, I was about to mention that you are in _desperate_ need of a shower," he commented casually even though it caused my eyes to bulge open.

"Have.. you also guessed that I'm on my own as well?" The question was so blatant that it was on borderline of betraying my first introduction. I prepared for the worst. Instead of directly responding, he flicked up the tip of his hat, symbolically meaning that he'd be more serious.

"To be honest, I'm sort of used to having a flurry of random visitors come in and treat this place like their own.." He trailed off.

"Wait...wait. You're kidding? You're really-?" I was in complete disbelief.

"As long as you stay on top of your workload, unlike _some people _in this popsicle stand," he chuckled softly and tousled my hair with a hand.

"Speaking of which, I'm sure that you're wondering why Renji was fighting in that attire and with a hideous, bone like retractable sword?"

I actually knew quite a bit about Mr. Abarai, but instead of lying through my ass, I inquired a pleasant bluff through my teeth.

"A few years ago, I learned some legend about this world being protected by 'Soul Reapers', I think. I'm guessing that Renji..." I didn't bother to continue.

"Mmm.." He moaned out a yawn while responding.

" - Yes, Renji Abarai is indeed a Soul Reaper. From the moment you fell out of the sky like a star, I already knew that you'd find your way over here. I may not know 'what' you are exactly..but I know that there's no point in hiding what the nature of my company is from you."

Out of nowhere, Tensai burst the bedroom door open with a loud sliding crunch and hurried next to Kisuke, sitting on his knees. He was holding a sketch pad and a handful of colorful markers. The entire mood suddenly spiked into a joyful one.

"You see..We live in what we call the 'Ningenkai' or the 'Human World,' which we're aware of," He explained as Tensai drew a large, messy green blob on the sketchpad and filled it in with happy little smilie faces.

"..Then there's where Renji comes from, which is called the 'Serieti,' or rather 'Soul Society.' Soul Society is basically a military based, hierarchical society that is made up of departed souls that harness new power and are eventually broken up into different factions. It's primary function is to maintain order and balance within the human world and of both worlds in general." As he paused to take a few breaths, Tensai created an elaborate pink blob filled with faceless little ghosts waving swords.

"Now, those scary monsters what you saw recently are what we call 'Hollow.' Hollow are what you get when a soul's hatred or despair consumes them and they're no longer in control of themselves. They reside in an area in between the Human and Spirit worlds in a desolate region called 'Hueco Mundo." Tensai drew a large parenthesis in between the blobs and drew scowling and fat little skeletons surrounded by stars.

"Every few days, a pack of Hollow attack the Human World in order to satisfy their varying appetites by feeding on souls. It's up to Ichigo, Renji and another friend of ours here to make sure that that doesn't happen by performing their roles as 'Soul Reapers.' It's a Soul Reaper's job to defend this world against Hollow and to guide wandering souls into a peaceful rest in Soul Society." Upon finishing, Tensai flipped to a new page and scribbled three messy figures. One had a matted tangle of hot pink hair with a black gigai and an angry face. The other two wore similar that were meant to represent Ichigo and Rukia.

"Thank you, Tensai," he rested his hand on his large, bulging shoulder before Tensai walked out of the room, quietly sliding the door back into place.

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering where you fit into all of this?" He asked, scratching his stubbled chin.

"Well that'd certainly help, I think," I replied, awaiting his response intently. Urahara smiled and drew in a sharp breath.

"Yoruichi and I believe that you fell into this world from another dimension and you had limited knowledge of us beforehand. So that caused you to wander into my shop inquiring about wanting a job because you had no other method of fitting in. Am I right so far?" I actually audibly gulped and stared at him unflinchingly. I couldn't believe this.

"Yeah, you've definitely nailed it so far." I responded truthfully, which caused him to chuckle.

"And..that spiritual power that you have is most likely an inherited side effect you gained from traveling in between dimensions. I'm assuming that you come from somewhere that is eons away, meaning that whatever you have will inevitably grow to massive degrees because of how much energy you gained from traveling that distance."

I ended up falling back onto my pallet and rose my hands above my face. I examined every little perfectly drawn line to every crevice. After all of my complaining about not leading an 'adventurous enough' life, this was my new solution. But the question is..how am I supposed to assimilate into a world that I was never born into to begin with? Urahara cleared his throat and continued.

"..So we think that it'd be a good idea to train you the best we can because we want to give you a chance to harness the power that you've been given. That's how we trained Ichigo and Renj, afterall. It took awhile, but they're grateful for the amount of power they're able to properly use now because of us."

I looked over at him.

"I feel like such a charity case, now. This is going have to take some getting used to for me because I wouldn't think you'd help out someone...that shouldn't even exist." My eyes began to grow warm and he placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"You're right. I could have completely ignored you falling into this world. But I didn't think that it'd be right to not give someone a chance...just because they're different." As I tried to hold back a well of tears from how beautiful those words were to me, he shook me back to my senses.

"..Come on, it's time for _you_ to clean yourself up and try to forget any doubts you had about being here." He rose and looked back at me as he slid the door open.

"...You're family now."

_A few days ago, I was a normal teenage girl excited to be enjoying the summer by hanging out with her friends, relaxing and peaking on the edge of fully becoming a young adult. On one of my first nights into such a summer, I stumbled into a hole that aligned two conflicting dimensions and I fell into a different version of the world that I grew to love. Over my past few days here, I've been running into characters that I once thought were fictional and I'd never actually meet. Not too long ago, I thought that I'd be living a normal life, with normal expectations. _

_Now I'm learning that whatever my fate is, is meant for much more than that. _

_My name is Kisamu Nakata and this is my story..._

_as an unexpected chemical within Bleach. _


End file.
